Azure Synapse Analytics
maang.io System Design Series
Azure Synapse is a massively-parallel (MPP) analytics warehouse: a control node splits each query across many compute nodes and 60 storage distributions, scanning columnar data in parallel. The whole game is choosing a table distribution (hash / round-robin / replicate) that avoids expensive data movement between distributions. It's the OLAP counterpoint to the OLTP databases in this group.
This deep dive comes in three parts:
- Foundations & Core Concepts — MPP, distributions, and OLAP vs OLTP.
- Internals — distribution strategies, clustered columnstore, and data movement (shuffle vs broadcast), with worked numbers.
- Interview — Staff/Principal Q&A: distribution choice and warehouse design.