Machine Learning with Microsoft Technologies


Book Description

Know how to do machine learning with Microsoft technologies. This book teaches you to do predictive, descriptive, and prescriptive analyses with Microsoft Power BI, Azure Data Lake, SQL Server, Stream Analytics, Azure Databricks, HD Insight, and more. The ability to analyze massive amounts of real-time data and predict future behavior of an organization is critical to its long-term success. Data science, and more specifically machine learning (ML), is today’s game changer and should be a key building block in every company’s strategy. Managing a machine learning process from business understanding, data acquisition and cleaning, modeling, and deployment in each tool is a valuable skill set. Machine Learning with Microsoft Technologies is a demo-driven book that explains how to do machine learning with Microsoft technologies. You will gain valuable insight into designing the best architecture for development, sharing, and deploying a machine learning solution. This book simplifies the process of choosing the right architecture and tools for doing machine learning based on your specific infrastructure needs and requirements. Detailed content is provided on the main algorithms for supervised and unsupervised machine learning and examples show ML practices using both R and Python languages, the main languages inside Microsoft technologies. What You'll Learn Choose the right Microsoft product for your machine learning solutionCreate and manage Microsoft’s tool environments for development, testing, and production of a machine learning projectImplement and deploy supervised and unsupervised learning in Microsoft products Set up Microsoft Power BI, Azure Data Lake, SQL Server, Stream Analytics, Azure Databricks, and HD Insight to perform machine learning Set up a data science virtual machine and test-drive installed tools, such as Azure ML Workbench, Azure ML Server Developer, Anaconda Python, Jupyter Notebook, Power BI Desktop, Cognitive Services, machine learning and data analytics tools, and more Architect a machine learning solution factoring in all aspects of self service, enterprise, deployment, and sharing Who This Book Is For Data scientists, data analysts, developers, architects, and managers who want to leverage machine learning in their products, organization, and services, and make educated, cost-saving decisions about their ML architecture and tool set.




Microsoft Azure Essentials Azure Machine Learning


Book Description

Microsoft Azure Essentials from Microsoft Press is a series of free ebooks designed to help you advance your technical skills with Microsoft Azure. This third ebook in the series introduces Microsoft Azure Machine Learning, a service that a developer can use to build predictive analytics models (using training datasets from a variety of data sources) and then easily deploy those models for consumption as cloud web services. The ebook presents an overview of modern data science theory and principles, the associated workflow, and then covers some of the more common machine learning algorithms in use today. It builds a variety of predictive analytics models using real world data, evaluates several different machine learning algorithms and modeling strategies, and then deploys the finished models as machine learning web services on Azure within a matter of minutes. The ebook also expands on a working Azure Machine Learning predictive model example to explore the types of client and server applications you can create to consume Azure Machine Learning web services. Watch Microsoft Press’s blog and Twitter (@MicrosoftPress) to learn about other free ebooks in the Microsoft Azure Essentials series.




Predictive Analytics with Microsoft Azure Machine Learning


Book Description

Data Science and Machine Learning are in high demand, as customers are increasingly looking for ways to glean insights from all their data. More customers now realize that Business Intelligence is not enough as the volume, speed and complexity of data now defy traditional analytics tools. While Business Intelligence addresses descriptive and diagnostic analysis, Data Science unlocks new opportunities through predictive and prescriptive analysis. The purpose of this book is to provide a gentle and instructionally organized introduction to the field of data science and machine learning, with a focus on building and deploying predictive models. The book also provides a thorough overview of the Microsoft Azure Machine Learning service using task oriented descriptions and concrete end-to-end examples, sufficient to ensure the reader can immediately begin using this important new service. It describes all aspects of the service from data ingress to applying machine learning and evaluating the resulting model, to deploying the resulting model as a machine learning web service. Finally, this book attempts to have minimal dependencies, so that you can fairly easily pick and choose chapters to read. When dependencies do exist, they are listed at the start and end of the chapter. The simplicity of this new service from Microsoft will help to take Data Science and Machine Learning to a much broader audience than existing products in this space. Learn how you can quickly build and deploy sophisticated predictive models as machine learning web services with the new Azure Machine Learning service from Microsoft.




Introducing Microsoft Power BI


Book Description

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. Introducing Microsoft Power BI enables you to evaluate when and how to use Power BI. Get inspired to improve business processes in your company by leveraging the available analytical and collaborative features of this environment. Be sure to watch for the publication of Alberto Ferrari and Marco Russo's upcoming retail book, Analyzing Data with Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel (ISBN 9781509302765). Go to the book's page at the Microsoft Press Store here for more details:http://aka.ms/analyzingdata/details. Learn more about Power BI at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/.




Self-Service AI with Power BI Desktop


Book Description

This book explains how you can enrich the data you have loaded into Power BI Desktop by accessing a suite of Artificial Intelligence (AI) features. These AI features are built into Power BI Desktop and help you to gain new insights from existing data. Some of the features are automated and are available to you at the click of a button or through writing Data Analysis Expressions (DAX). Other features are available through writing code in either the R, Python, or M languages. This book opens up the entire suite of AI features to you with clear examples showing when they are best applied and how to invoke them on your own datasets. No matter if you are a business user, analyst, or data scientist – Power BI has AI capabilities tailored to you. This book helps you learn what types of insights Power BI is capable of delivering automatically. You will learn how to integrate and leverage the use of the R and Python languages for statistics, how to integrate with Cognitive Services and Azure Machine Learning Services when loading data, how to explore your data by asking questions in plain English ... and more! There are AI features for discovering your data, characterizing unexplored datasets, and building what-if scenarios. There’s much to like and learn from this book whether you are a newcomer to Power BI or a seasoned user. Power BI Desktop is a freely available tool for visualization and analysis. This book helps you to get the most from that tool by exploiting some of its latest and most advanced features. What You Will Learn Ask questions in natural language and get answers from your data Let Power BI explain why a certain data point differs from the rest Have Power BI show key influencers over categories of data Access artificial intelligence features available in the Azure cloud Walk the same drill down path in different parts of your hierarchy Load visualizations to add smartness to your reports Simulate changes in data and immediately see the consequences Know your data, even before you build your first report Create new columns by giving examples of the data that you need Transform and visualize your data with the help of R and Python scripts Who This Book Is For For the enthusiastic Power BI user who wants to apply state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) features to gain new insights from existing data. For end-users and IT professionals who are not shy of jumping into a new world of machine learning and are ready to make that step and take a deeper look into their data. For those wanting to step up their game from doing simple reporting and visualizations by making the move into diagnostic and predictive analysis.




Mastering Microsoft Power BI


Book Description

Design, create and manage robust Power BI solutions to gain meaningful business insights Key Features Master all the dashboarding and reporting features of Microsoft Power BI Combine data from multiple sources, create stunning visualizations and publish your reports across multiple platforms A comprehensive guide with real-world use cases and examples demonstrating how you can get the best out of Microsoft Power BI Book DescriptionThis book is intended for business intelligence professionals responsible for the design and development of Power BI content as well as managers, architects and administrators who oversee Power BI projects and deployments. The chapters flow from the planning of a Power BI project through the development and distribution of content to the administration of Power BI for an organization. BI developers will learn how to create sustainable and impactful Power BI datasets, reports, and dashboards. This includes connecting to data sources, shaping and enhancing source data, and developing an analytical data model. Additionally, top report and dashboard design practices are described using features such as Bookmarks and the Power KPI visual. BI managers will learn how Power BI’s tools work together such as with the On-premises data gateway and how content can be staged and securely distributed via Apps. Additionally, both the Power BI Report Server and Power BI Premium are reviewed. By the end of this book, you will be confident in creating effective charts, tables, reports or dashboards for any kind of data using the tools and techniques in Microsoft Power BI.What you will learn Build efficient data retrieval and transformation processes with the Power Query M Language Design scalable, user-friendly DirectQuery and Import Data Models Develop visually rich, immersive, and interactive reports and dashboards Maintain version control and stage deployments across development, test, and production environments Manage and monitor the Power BI Service and the On-premises data gateway Develop a fully on-premise solution with the Power BI Report Server Scale up a Power BI solution via Power BI Premium capacity and migration to Azure Analysis Services or SQL Server Analysis Services Who this book is for Business Intelligence professionals and existing Power BI users looking to master Power BI for all their data visualization and dashboarding needs will find this book to be useful. While understanding of the basic BI concepts is required, some exposure to Microsoft Power BI will be helpful.




Mastering Power Query in Power BI and Excel


Book Description

Any data analytics solution requires data population and preparation. With the rise of data analytics solutions these years, the need for this data preparation becomes even more essential. Power BI is a helpful data analytics tool that is used worldwide by many users. As a Power BI (or Microsoft BI) developer, it is essential to learn how to prepare the data in the right shape and format needed. You need to learn how to clean the data and build it in a structure that can be modeled easily and used high performant for visualization. Data preparation and transformation is the backend work. If you consider building a BI system as going to a restaurant and ordering food. The visualization is the food you see on the table nicely presented. The quality, the taste, and everything else come from the hard work in the kitchen. The part that you don’t see or the backend in the world of Power BI is Power Query. You may already be familiar with other data preparation and transformation technologies, such as T-SQL, SSIS, Azure Data Factory, Informatica, etc. Power Query is a data transformation engine capable of preparing the data in the format you need. The good news is that to learn Power Query; you don’t need to know programming. Power Query is for citizen data engineers. However, this doesn’t mean that Power Query is not capable of performing advanced transformation. Power Query exists in many Microsoft tools and services such as Power BI, Excel, Dataflows, Power Automate, Azure Data Factory, etc. Through the years, this engine became more powerful. These days, we can say this is essential learning for anyone who wants to do data analysis with Microsoft technology to learn Power Query and master it. We have been working with Power Query since the very early release of that in 2013, named Data Explorer, and wrote blog articles and published videos about it. The number of articles we published under this subject easily exceeds hundreds. Through those articles, some of the fundamentals and key learnings of Power Query are explained. We thought it is good to compile some of them in a book series. A good analytics solution combines a good data model, good data preparation, and good analytics and calculations. Reza has written another book about the Basics of modeling in Power BI and a book on Power BI DAX Simplified. This book is covering the data preparation and transformations aspects of it. This book series is for you if you are building a Power BI solution. Even if you are just visualizing the data, preparation and transformations are an essential part of analytics. You do need to have the cleaned and prepared data ready before visualizing it. This book is compiled into a series of two books, which will be followed by a third book later; Getting started with Power Query in Power BI and Excel (already available to be purchased separately) Mastering Power Query in Power BI and Excel (This book) Power Query dataflows (will be published later) This book deeps dive into real-world challenges of data transformation. It starts with combining data sources and continues with aggregations and fuzzy operations. The book covers advanced usage of Power Query in scenarios such as error handling and exception reports, custom functions and parameters, advanced analytics, and some helpful table and list functions. The book continues with some performance tuning tips and it also explains the Power Query formula language (M) and the structure of it and how to use it in practical solutions. Although this book is written for Power BI and all the examples are presented using the Power BI. However, the examples can be easily applied to Excel, Dataflows, and other tools and services using Power Query.




Extending Power BI with Python and R


Book Description

Perform more advanced analysis and manipulation of your data beyond what Power BI can do to unlock valuable insights using Python and R Key FeaturesGet the most out of Python and R with Power BI by implementing non-trivial codeLeverage the toolset of Python and R chunks to inject scripts into your Power BI dashboardsImplement new techniques for ingesting, enriching, and visualizing data with Python and R in Power BIBook Description Python and R allow you to extend Power BI capabilities to simplify ingestion and transformation activities, enhance dashboards, and highlight insights. With this book, you'll be able to make your artifacts far more interesting and rich in insights using analytical languages. You'll start by learning how to configure your Power BI environment to use your Python and R scripts. The book then explores data ingestion and data transformation extensions, and advances to focus on data augmentation and data visualization. You'll understand how to import data from external sources and transform them using complex algorithms. The book helps you implement personal data de-identification methods such as pseudonymization, anonymization, and masking in Power BI. You'll be able to call external APIs to enrich your data much more quickly using Python programming and R programming. Later, you'll learn advanced Python and R techniques to perform in-depth analysis and extract valuable information using statistics and machine learning. You'll also understand the main statistical features of datasets by plotting multiple visual graphs in the process of creating a machine learning model. By the end of this book, you'll be able to enrich your Power BI data models and visualizations using complex algorithms in Python and R. What you will learnDiscover best practices for using Python and R in Power BI productsUse Python and R to perform complex data manipulations in Power BIApply data anonymization and data pseudonymization in Power BILog data and load large datasets in Power BI using Python and REnrich your Power BI dashboards using external APIs and machine learning modelsExtract insights from your data using linear optimization and other algorithmsHandle outliers and missing values for multivariate and time-series dataCreate any visualization, as complex as you want, using R scriptsWho this book is for This book is for business analysts, business intelligence professionals, and data scientists who already use Microsoft Power BI and want to add more value to their analysis using Python and R. Working knowledge of Power BI is required to make the most of this book. Basic knowledge of Python and R will also be helpful.




Automated Machine Learning with Microsoft Azure


Book Description

A practical, step-by-step guide to using Microsoft's AutoML technology on the Azure Machine Learning service for developers and data scientists working with the Python programming language Key FeaturesCreate, deploy, productionalize, and scale automated machine learning solutions on Microsoft AzureImprove the accuracy of your ML models through automatic data featurization and model trainingIncrease productivity in your organization by using artificial intelligence to solve common problemsBook Description Automated Machine Learning with Microsoft Azure will teach you how to build high-performing, accurate machine learning models in record time. It will equip you with the knowledge and skills to easily harness the power of artificial intelligence and increase the productivity and profitability of your business. Guided user interfaces (GUIs) enable both novices and seasoned data scientists to easily train and deploy machine learning solutions to production. Using a careful, step-by-step approach, this book will teach you how to use Azure AutoML with a GUI as well as the AzureML Python software development kit (SDK). First, you'll learn how to prepare data, train models, and register them to your Azure Machine Learning workspace. You'll then discover how to take those models and use them to create both automated batch solutions using machine learning pipelines and real-time scoring solutions using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Finally, you will be able to use AutoML on your own data to not only train regression, classification, and forecasting models but also use them to solve a wide variety of business problems. By the end of this Azure book, you'll be able to show your business partners exactly how your ML models are making predictions through automatically generated charts and graphs, earning their trust and respect. What you will learnUnderstand how to train classification, regression, and forecasting ML algorithms with Azure AutoMLPrepare data for Azure AutoML to ensure smooth model training and deploymentAdjust AutoML configuration settings to make your models as accurate as possibleDetermine when to use a batch-scoring solution versus a real-time scoring solutionProductionalize your AutoML and discover how to quickly deliver valueCreate real-time scoring solutions with AutoML and Azure Kubernetes ServiceTrain a large number of AutoML models at once using the AzureML Python SDKWho this book is for Data scientists, aspiring data scientists, machine learning engineers, or anyone interested in applying artificial intelligence or machine learning in their business will find this machine learning book useful. You need to have beginner-level knowledge of artificial intelligence and a technical background in computer science, statistics, or information technology before getting started. Familiarity with Python will help you implement the more advanced features found in the chapters, but even data analysts and SQL experts will be able to train ML models after finishing this book.




Getting started with Power Query in Power BI and Excel


Book Description

Any data analytics solution requires data population and preparation. With the rise of data analytics solutions these years, the need for this data preparation becomes even more essential. Power BI is a helpful data analytics tool that is used worldwide by many users. As a Power BI (or Microsoft BI) developer, it is essential to learn how to prepare the data in the right shape and format needed. You need to learn how to clean the data and build it in the structure that can be modeled easily and used high performant for visualization. Data preparation and transformation is the backend work. If you consider building a BI system as going to a restaurant and ordering food. The visualization is the food you see on the table nicely presented. The quality, the taste, and everything else comes from the hard work in the kitchen. The part that you don’t see or the backend in the world of Power BI is Power Query. You may be already familiar with some other data preparation and data transformation technologies, such as T-SQL, SSIS, Azure Data Factory, Informatica, etc. Power Query is a data transformation engine capable of preparing the data in the format you need. The good news is that to learn Power Query; you don’t need to know programming. Power Query is for citizen data engineers. However, this doesn’t mean that Power Query is not capable of performing advanced transformation. Unfortunately, because Power Query and data preparation is the kitchen work of the BI system, many Power BI users skip the learning of it and become aware of it somewhere along their BI project. Once they get familiar with it, they realize there are tons of things they could have implemented easier, faster, and in a much more maintainable way using Power Query. In other words, they learn mastering Power Query is the key skill toward mastering Power BI. We have been working with Power Query since the very early release of that in 2013, named Data Explorer, and wrote blog articles and published videos about it. The number of articles we published under this subject easily exceeds hundreds. Through those articles, some of the fundamentals and key learnings of Power Query are explained. We thought it is good to compile some of them in a book. A good analytics solution combines a good data model, good data preparation, and good analytics and calculations. Reza has written another book about the Basics of modeling in Power BI and a book on Power BI DAX Simplified. This book is covering the data preparation and transformations aspects of it. This book is for you if you are building a Power BI solution. Even if you are just visualizing the data, preparation and transformations are an essential part of analytics. You do need to have the cleaned and prepared data ready before visualizing it. This book is complied into a series of two books, which will be followed by a third book later; Getting started with Power Query in Power BI and Excel (this book) Mastering Power Query in Power BI and Excel (already available to be purchased separately) Power Query dataflows (will be published later) Although this book is written for Power BI and all the examples are presented using the Power BI. However, the examples can be easily applied to Excel, Dataflows, and other tools and services using Power Query.