New Features in BimlFlex 2022 R1
Feature Highlights
- New feature: Business Modeling
- Added support for Salesforce connector
- Added support for Azure PostgreSQL connector
- User Interface Improvements for all BimlFlex Visual Editors
- Preview of Azure Data Factory Mapping Data Flows
New feature: Business Modeling
Business Modeling has been added to BimlFlex. This new feature allows for the definition of an information model in BimlFlex. Users can design a holistic model that describes the business' data, while avoiding bias from already existing systems and data structures.
Business Modeling within BimlFlex seeks to preserve the essence of this process: collaboration, discussion, and interaction, while simultaneously digitizing the team experience.
Business Models can be created using predefined Ensemble Logical Modeling (ELM) or Party & Party Role (PPR) approaches, or by defining a custom set of classifications and labels. For example, customization is supported by defining types such as Subjects, People, Events, or Places. These types of Business Model objects are represented as 'cards' on the model design board.
Business Models can be mapped to the data sources in BimlFlex to forward-engineer the data solution from there.
More information on Business Modeling here: Business Modeling in BimlFlex
Added Support for Salesforce Connector
BimlFlex now supports Salesforce (SFDC) as a 'Source' connection or dataset. Additional metadata samples have also been added for either Azure Data Factory or SSIS solutions.
More information on importing Salesforce metadata here: Connecting to a Salesforce REST API
Added Support for Azure PostgreSQL Connector
BimlFlex now supports on-premises and Azure PostgreSQL as a 'Source' connection. Azure PostgreSQL Linked Service is now deployable, as well as SSIS component connection using Intellisoft PostgreSQL OLEDB. Querying views, indexes, and column metadata can be performed through the 'Generate SQL' command.
User Interface Improvements for all BimlFlex Visual Editors
The visual editors within BimlFlex have all been overhauled. This has resulted in an increase of responsiveness across all areas, as well as improvements in consistency and ease-of-use for the Data Vault Accelerator, Schema Diagram, and the new Business Modeling feature.
Preview of Azure Data Factory Mapping Data Flows
As of the 2022 release, generating the data logistics in native Mapping Data Flows for Azure Data Factory is available in preview. This is especially geared towards Delta Lake use-cases.
Delta Lake is an open-source storage layer that can be used 'on top off' Azure Data Lake Gen2, where it provides transaction control (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability, or 'ACID') features to the data lake.
This supports a 'Lake House' style architecture, which is gaining traction because it offers opportunities to work with various kinds of data in a single environment. For example, combining semi- and unstructured data or batch- and streaming processing. This means various use-cases can be supported by a single infrastructure.
Microsoft has made Delta Lake connectors available for Azure Data Factory (ADF) pipelines and Mapping Data Flows (or simply 'Data Flows'). Using these connectors, you can use your data lake to 'act' as a typical relational database for delivering your target models while at the same time use the lake for other use-cases.
Even better, using Data Flows can use integration runtimes for the compute without requiring a separate cluster that hosts Delta Lake. This is the inline feature and makes it possible to configure an Azure Storage Account (Azure Data Lake Gen2) and use the Delta Lake features without any further configuration.
In the preview version, it is possible to deploy your solution using the 'Azure Data Flow' Integration Template against new 'Azure Data Lake Store' connections combined with the new 'Delta Lake' System Type.
BimlFlex 2022 R1 Release Notes
- Read the complete BimlFlex 2022 R1 Release Notes here