Chapter 7: Implementing the Serving Layer

I hope you enjoyed learning about the implementation details of the logical data structures in the previous chapter. In this chapter, we will learn about implementing the serving layer, which involves implementing star schemas, techniques to read and write different data formats, sharing data between services such as SQL and Spark, and more. Once you complete this chapter, you should be able to understand the differences between a Synapse dedicated SQL pool versus traditional SQL systems for implementing the Star schema, the various ways of accessing Parquet data using technologies such as Spark and SQL, and the details involved in storing metadata across services. All this knowledge should help you build a practical and maintainable serving layer in a data lake and, of course, clear the certification too.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

• Delivering data in a relational star schema
• Implementing a dimensional...