Home > Workload Solutions > SQL Server > White Papers > Running SQL Server 2022 with Red Hat OpenShift on AMD EPYC based Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell ObjectScale > Data virtualization
Data virtualization allows for retrieval and manipulation of data without knowing where the data is stored or how it is formatted. This concept integrates data from disparate sources without copying or moving the data, giving data scientists a single virtual layer that spans multiple formats and physical locations.
SQL Server 2022 Polybase makes data virtualization possible by enabling a SQL Server instance to query data with T-SQL directly from SQL Server or other sources. For this feature to work properly, Polybase must be installed and enabled on the SQL Server instance.
Figure 12 shows how to verify that Polybase is installed and enabled.
1. Enable the Polybase feature at the SQL Server instance level if it is not already enabled.
2. Verify that Polybase was enabled successfully.
An external data source should be created after Polybase has been installed and enabled. In this exercise, the external source was created on a Dell ObjectScale object storage. An encryption key is required for the communication between the SQL Server instance and the external data source.
Figure 15 shows an example of how to create an encryption key and verify the communication between the SQL Server and the Dell ObjectScale instance.
3. Create an Encryption key with a password in the desired user database.
4. Create the database scope credentials within the preferred user database.
5. Create external data source by pointing to S3 storage URL and the database scope credentials.
6. Validate data accessibility in Delta Lake table format within the ObjectScale storage using OPENROWSET.