Last week Microsoft finally updated Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics with great new features. In this blogpost I explain some new features I use in our projects now.

Using custom code in your Microsoft Stream Analytics Query

In our projects we have sometimes challenges with the data we are receiving in Stream Analytics for the Microsoft Azure IoT Hub (finally the sensor off course…). For example we sometimes work with the Sigfox IoT network. With this network a device can sent small datapackages to the Azure IoT Hub, most of the times this is sent via a HEX format. Normally you want to transform this HEX data to a integer. (Yes, you can do it afterwards, but I want to do this directly in Stream Analytics query). One of the new functions just launched is support for Custom Code with JavaScript user defined functions. This is great, because I can great a function in Stream Analytics and transform my Hex to an INT just in the query. Here is how you do this:

1. First of all you go to your Microsoft Stream Analytics job and select ‘Function’ and add a new one:

2. After that you will get a window to create your javascript. In this example you see a hex to int function:

3. Now you can use your Javascript function in your query of Stream Analytics. Just type udf. than your function name and you can transform your HEX to an integer.

 

Visual Studio integration for Azure Stream Analytics

One challenge I have with creating queries in Azure Stream Analytics (yes, I am not the best with SQL..) is testing my queries with the data input. I was costing me a lot of time. I was the last weeks part of a private preview of the integration of Azure Stream Analytics in Visual Studio. That is now in public preview(download here). With this add-in you can export (or import) your Microsoft Stream Analytics projects in Visual Studio and test everything locally! Currently only Visual Studio 2015 is supported.

1. First or all go to your Server Explorer and navigate to Stream Analytics and hit the export button.

2. Then your complete stream analytics project is exported to Visual Studio 2015. Here you get some great functionalities

Functionalities:

• Syntax Highlighting in your queries
• You can write your query and test it directly to testdata! Just hit F5!
• You can write your custom Javascript code
• You have off course directly integration with TFS / source control

Low-latency dashboards in Power BI

Another new update is low latency support in your Microsoft Power BI output of Azure Stream Analytics. (Power BI streaming sets). The latency is now much better then some weeks ago. So you get faster insights in your data!

Others

Other new functionalities:

• Native support for Geospatial functions; now you can define geographical areas in your Azure Streaming job.
• Job Diagnostics logs; there is now an integration with Azure Monitoring to better monitor your Stream Analytics Jobs!