Using External Tables to Store + Query Data on MinIO w/SQL Server 2022

Moiz Kohari

With Microsoft SQL Server 2022, object storage becomes a critical new architectural component through a feature called external tables. An S3 connector and enhancements to the Polybase data virtualization framework are the enabling technologies. With this addition, enterprises can now query massive object stores with SQL Server 2022 wherever those object stores exist.

The new feature addresses two key customer challenges: ways to access the data where it is and not having to learn new languages. With the MinIO object store, multi-cloud is built in. As a result, data can be anywhere, including public cloud infrastructure (Azure, GCP, AWS), private clouds, Kubernetes distributions and at the edge.

The talk will feature a discussion of the key SQL Server release features and their implications for the enterprise, with a particular emphasis on multi-cloud implementations utilizing MinIO technology. The talk will include a demo showing how it works, how easy it is to deploy and what to expect from a performance perspective.