Home > Workload Solutions > SQL Server > White Papers > Solution Insight: SQL Server 2022 Data Analytics on Dell PowerEdge with AMD EPYC 7473X Processors and Dell ECS > Data virtualization use case
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 13 provides an example of how to verify whether PolyBase is installed and enabled.
Enable Polybase feature at SQL Server instance level if it is not already enabled.
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 ECS object storage. An encryption key is required for the communication between the SQL Server instance and the external data source.
The following figure shows an example of how to create an encryption key and verify the communication between SQL Server and the Dell ECS.