Exploring Azure Data with Kusto and Dashboards
In order to more effectively learn Kusto (the query language powering Azure analytics, log querying and PowerBI) and data visualization capabilites in Azure, I did the following:
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.Add the cluster with the full URI or alternatively just the
name.regionparts (i.e.kzukusto.centralusvshttps://kzukusto.centralus.kusto.windows.net) - 4.Optionally add an arbitrary Application Insights app as a "virtual cluster", using a url with the format
https://ade.applicationinsights.io/subscriptions/<id>/resourcegroups/<name>/providers/microsoft.insights/components/<ai-app-name> - 5.Right--lick database and select Ingest new data
- 6.Find some interesting Azure Open Dataset from the catalog that has an Azure storage URL readily available from the Azure Open Datasets catalog, such as the Bing COVID-19 Data (I used the
.jsonllink). NOTE: the.jsonone will not properly infer schema because it has a root object of type array. The.jsonlis actually a "JSON fragment" (if that even exists, would be the equivalent of an XML fragment) where each entry is just a JSON entry/line in the file.The JSON version is preferable to.csvbecause it properly infer the data type for columns. - 7.Click on
Dashboardsfor the new stuff here. Parameters driven by queries are particularly handy:
Query-driven multi-select parameter for widget
While editing the query/widget, if the parameter is used in the query, you can interactively change its value to explore the visualizations. For example:
Used parameter becomes enabled for selection
Whereas if it wasn't used:
Unused parameter unavailable
After shaping the
Resultsthe way you want, clicking the Visual tab allows configuring a bunch of visualizations. Inference works quite nicely if the data/results are filtered to just what you want to display.Many chart options and inference that works great