External data sources
External data sources are your path to virtualizing data from other systems. They collate the connectivity metadata into a single database object. Each external data source provides the location, port, credential, and connectivity options required to access the external source. Just like the other objects discussed, external data sources are database scoped, residing in the database chosen as the data hub.
Supported data sources
The number of external data sources has significantly increased in SQL Server 2019 and now supports many relational database management systems, key-value stores (non-relational), and big data file formats for querying data that's resident in Hadoop. The following table summarizes all the external data sources available in SQL Server 2019, highlighting the required security model for that source:
Table 7.2: Table summarizing the external data sources
Note
In the preceding table, SQL Server includes...