What’s new with SQL Server Big Data Clusters—CU11 Release
SQL Server Big Data Clusters (BDC) is a capability brought to market as part of the SQL Server 2019 release. BDC extends SQL Server’s analytical capabilities beyond in-database processing of transactional and analytical workloads by uniting the SQL engine with Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop to create a single, secure, and unified data platform. BDC is available exclusively to run on Linux containers, orchestrated by Kubernetes, and can be deployed in multiple-cloud providers or on-premises.
Today, we’re announcing the release of the latest cumulative update, CU11, for SQL Server Big Data Clusters, which includes important capabilities:
- Encryption at Rest with external key providers, commonly known as “bring your own key” (BYOK).
- Several SQL Server PolyBase Hadoop fixes and SQL Server PolyBase additional support to many data sources.
Major improvements in this update are highlighted below, along with resources for you to learn more and get started.
Data Encryption at Rest
SQL Server 2019 CU8 introduced the Encryption at Rest initial feature set, bringing together a system-managed experience across both SQL Server and HDFS components. With each additional release shaped by our community and insightful customer feedback, many features were added. With the release of the latest cumulative update, CU11, we get to a complete Encryption at Rest feature set, with seamless application-level encryption for the SQL Server and HDFS components.
In CU11, we introduced the BYOK functionality with integration with external key providers, such as Hardware Security Modules (HSM) or services like Azure Key Vault or even Hashicorp Vault. With that capability SQL Server Big Data Clusters Encryption at Rest feature set now contains both system-managed and user-managed Encryption at Rest for SQL Server and HDFS components.
To learn more about the complete Encryption at Rest feature set, see the in-depth documentation:
- Encryption at rest concepts and configuration guide.
- Key Versions in SQL Server Big Data Clusters.
- External Key Providers in SQL Server Big Data Clusters.
- SQL Server Big Data Clusters transparent data encryption (TDE) at rest usage guide.
- SQL Server Big Data Clusters HDFS encryption zones usage guide.
SQL Server Big Data Clusters PolyBase improvements
Consistent with our commitment to continuous improvements of the Data Virtualization and scale-out capabilities, CU11 bring fixes and new support for the following data sources: Hortonworks HDP 3.1, Cloudera CDH 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, Azure Blob Storage (WASB[S]), and Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ABFS[S]).
For more information, see:
- PolyBase Connectivity Configuration (Transact-SQL).
- Configure PolyBase to access external data in Hadoop.
- CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE (Transact-SQL).
Ready to learn more?
Check out the SQL Server Big Data Clusters CU11 release notes to learn more about all the improvements available with the latest update. For a technical deep-dive on Big Data Clusters, read the documentation and visit our GitHub repository.
Follow the instructions on our documentation page to get started and deploy Big Data Clusters.
