Synapse pipeline pass parameter to notebook

Case
I have a Synapse workspace notebook that I call from a Synapse pipeline, but I want to make it more flexible by adding parameters. How do you add parameters to a notebook and fill them via a pipeline?

Adding Parameters to your Synapse Notebook

Solution
You can add variables to a special Code cell in the notebook and then use those as parameters within the Notebook activity. At the moment there is no real gui retrieving the parameters from the Notebook so you have to copy the names from the notebook to the Notebook activity in the pipeline.

1) Add Code cell for parameters

We need to add a Code cell and change it in to a parameter cell. Note that you can have only one parameter cell in your notebook. You want to add it somewhere at the top so that you can use its variables/parameters in the cells below this parameter cell.

• Go to your notebook and add a new Code cell
• Move it up. It should probably be your top code cell allowing you to use it in the cells below.
• Click in the cell and then on the ellipsis button of that cell (button up right with three dots)
• Choose Toggle parameter cell and you will see the word Parameters appear in the bottom right corner

Toggle parameter cell

2) Add variables to parameters cell

Next we need to add some code to the parameter cell. Here you just need to add some variables and then each variable can be overridden by the pipeline and be used in the cells below. For debugging it is usefull to give the variables a value. For this example we used python code.

Adding variables

3) Adjust Synapse Notebook activity

Last step is to edit the Synapse Notebook activity and add the parameters. For each variable you added to the parameters cell you can add a paramater in the notebook activity. At the moment there is no smart interface that lets you select a parameter and set its value. You have to set the name and datatype manually.

Adding parameters

4) Testing

Now run the pipeline to see the result. For this example we added a second Code cell with a print function to show that the default values have changed. Trigger the pipeline and go to the Monitor. Then click on your pipeline and within that pipeline on the Notebook activity. If you click on the pencil icon the notebook will open and allow you to see the result.

Click on pencil te open the Notebook

Note the extra cell and the result of the third cell

Conclusion

In this short post you learned how to add parameters to your notebook and fill them via the pipeline. And as an additional bonus you saw how to check the result of the changes. Next step is forexample to add the Notebook to a Foreach loop that ingest data to the datalake and then execute the notebook to create a Delta Lake table for each item in the Foreach loop.

ADF Release - Use parameters to enable Triggers

Case
During deployment of Azure Data Factory (ADF) via Azure DevOps pipelines I want to make sure that a certain trigger is only executed on Production and not on the lower environments. How can we do this without writing code (low-code)?

ADF Trigger

Solution

This is possible by changing the ARM template parameter definition which on its turn will switch certain properties into overridable parameters during deployment. However, the triggers are not included by default in the parameter file. There is also a limitation that you cannot override every property, for example runtimeState to activate and deactivate the trigger. The workaround for this is to use the endTime property. 

More information about which properties are parameterized can be found here.

1) Understand parameters in ADF

Before we start overriding properties in the ARM template, it is good to understand the parameters in general. As you know, when start building your ADF, one of the first things you do is creating a Linked Service. By default, ADF knows that for example a connection string or using a Key Vault in a Linked Service should be parameterize, because the database server or the URL will be different per environment in a DTAP. The result is always two ARM template files: the content itself (ARMTemplateForFactory.json) and the parameters that can be overwritten (ARMTemplateParametersForFactory.json). Another file holds the definition of the parameters (arm-template-parameters-definition.json). 

When you start developing in a new ADF, the ARM template parameters file (result) only contains the ADF name that can be overwritten. When you have created a Linked Service, for example Azure Blob Storage, the file should look something like below. 

{
    "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentParameters.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "factoryName": {
            "value": "bitools-d-adf-dwh"
        },
        "LS_ABLB_bitools_connectionString": {
            "value": ""
        }
    }
}

You can check this via "Manage - ARM template - Export ARM template".

ADF Portal - Check the parameters

2) Check Trigger code

Now back to our trigger. Based on the documentation, we know which properties we can parameterize for a trigger. Lets have a look at the code of the trigger itself.

• In the ADF portal go to Manage (toolbox icon in left menu) and then to Triggers
• Find your trigger and hover your mouse on it and click on the code icon {}

ADF portal - Check the code of your trigger

See below the JSON code of the trigger. You can override everything that is related to typeProperties. Unfortunately the runtimeState property is not one of them.

{
    "name": "Trigger_Master",
    "properties": {
        "description": "Test",
        "annotations": [],
        "runtimeState": "Started",
        "pipelines": [
            {
                "pipelineReference": {
                    "referenceName": "PL_Master",
                    "type": "PipelineReference"
                }
            }
        ],
        "type": "ScheduleTrigger",
        "typeProperties": {
            "recurrence": {
                "frequency": "Day",
                "interval": 1,
                "startTime": "2021-01-01T00:00:00Z",
                "endTime": "2021-01-02T00:00:00Z",
                "timeZone": "UTC",
                "schedule": {
                    "minutes": [
                        10
                    ],
                    "hours": [
                        0
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Now that we have identified which properties can be parameterized, we need to know which property we want to override for our use case. As you know, we need to make sure the trigger should not be executed on every environment. One way to do this is to set the end date (and time) of a trigger. This property is called endTime. For example: a trigger with an end date on "01/02/2021 12:00 AM" will not be executed because this is in the past. When the end date is "12/31/9999 12:00 AM", the trigger will be executed because it is in the future.

Go to your trigger and set an end date and time in the future, for example 12/31/9999 12:00 AM.

ADF portal - Specify end date for trigger

3) ARM template

Next step is to override the endTime property in the ARM template parameter definition. Unlike integration runtime or linked services properties, we need to add this property first. 

• In the ADF portal go to Manage (same as step 2) and then to ARM template
• Click on Edit parameter configuration
• Search for "Microsoft.DataFactory/factories/triggers" and add the endTime property (that is part of recurrence) within typeProperties, set the value to "=:-endTime" and click the OK button. See below how your JSON should look like for the trigger part.

    "Microsoft.DataFactory/factories/triggers": {
        "properties": {
            "pipelines": [
                {
                    "parameters": {
                        "*": "="
                    }
                },
                "pipelineReference.referenceName"
            ],
            "pipeline": {
                "parameters": {
                    "*": "="
                }
            },
            "typeProperties": {
                "scope": "=",
                "recurrence": {
                    "endTime": "=:-endTime"
                }
            }
        }
    },

Now check the ARM template parameters via "Manage - ARM template - Export ARM template" (see step 1) and the result should look like this.

{
    "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentParameters.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "factoryName": {
            "value": "bitools-d-adf-dwh"
        },
        "LS_ABLB_bitools_connectionString": {
            "value": ""
        },
        "Trigger_Master_endTime": {
            "value": "9999-12-31T00:00:00Z"
        }
    }
}

In this case, we have set the default by using "=" in front of the value. Adding a minus - in front of parameter name (endTime) will remove "_properties_typeProperties" from the parameter name. More information here.

Note:

The global parameters are also not set by default. Click here how to include them in the ARM template parameters file as well.

4) Adjust release pipeline

If you are using YAML to publish the changes then the only thing you have to change is the overrideParameters property by adding the new parameter Trigger_Master_endTime and adding either a variable or a hardcoded value. The > behind the property helps you to break the string over multiple lines and keep the YAML code more readable.

          ###################################
          # Deploy ADF Artifact
          ###################################
          - task: AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3
            displayName: '4 Deploy ADF Artifact'
            inputs:
              deploymentScope: 'Resource Group'
              azureResourceManagerConnection: 'sc_mcacc-adf-devopssp'
              subscriptionId: $(DataFactorySubscriptionId)
              action: 'Create Or Update Resource Group'
              resourceGroupName: $(DataFactoryResourceGroupName)
              location: 'West Europe'
              templateLocation: 'Linked artifact'
              csmFile: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/ArmTemplatesArtifact/ARMTemplateForFactory.json'
              csmParametersFile: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/ArmTemplatesArtifact/ARMTemplateParametersForFactory.json'
              overrideParameters: > 
                -factoryName $(DataFactoryName)
                -LS_ABLB_bitools_connectionString $(AzureBlobConnectionString)
                -Trigger_Master_endTime $(AzureDataFactoryTriggerEndTimeActive)
              deploymentMode: 'Incremental'

            env: 
                SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN: $(System.AccessToken)

And if you're using the Release pipelines with the ARM template deployment task then you can just go to the Override template parameters property, click on the edit button and replace the value with a new value or a variable from a variable group.

ARM template deployment - Override template parameters

Conclusion

In this post you learned how to add and override properties of a trigger during deployment via Azure DevOps. This allows you to activate or deactivate a trigger for that environment during deployment using ARM templates without writing any code. 

In a previous post we showed you how to accomplish this for a Linked Service in combination with Azure Key Vault.

ADF Release - Use script to enable certain Triggers

Case
During deployment of Azure Data Factory (ADF) via Azure DevOps pipelines I want to make sure that a certain trigger is only executed on Production and not on the lower environments like acceptance or test. How can we accomplish that without any manual operations? 

ADF Trigger

Solution
This is possible with an extra PowerShell step. The standard deployment stages consists of three steps:

• a pre-deployment script that stops all triggers.
• the actual deployment
• a post-deployment script that starts all triggers and cleans up old parts.

You could adjust the standard pre- and post deployment PowerShell script from Microsoft or create an additional PowerShell script if you don't want to mess around with the standard script from Microsoft. 

1) PowerShell

Below that additional script. Feel free to merge it with the standard script. The PowerShell file should be stored in the repository in the \CICD\PowerShell folder (see setup post).

PowerShell file for setting trigger status

The new PowerShell script has five parameters which will be provided by the YAML pipeline (or release pipeline):

1. DataFactoryName
   [string] Name of your Data Factory
2. DataFactoryResourceGroup
   [string] Name of the Resource Group holding your ADF
3. DataFactorySubscriptionId
   [string] Guid of the Azure Subscription hosting your ADF
4. DisableAllTriggers
   [boolean] True or false indicating whether all triggers should be disabled (except triggers mentioned in next parameter)
5. EnabledTriggers
   [string] Comma separated list with triggernames that should be enabled: "trigger1,trigger2"

The script consists of three parts. The first part checks all parameters. If one of them is incorrect then the scripts fails and stops. The second part is the optional disabling of all triggers (except the ones that we need enabled) and the last part of the script checks the list of triggers that should be enabled. If they are still disabled they will be enabled.

param
(
    [parameter(Mandatory = $true)] [String] $DataFactoryName,
    [parameter(Mandatory = $true)] [String] $DataFactoryResourceGroup,
    [parameter(Mandatory = $true)] [String] $DataFactorySubscriptionId,
    [parameter(Mandatory = $false)] [Bool] $DisableAllTriggers = $true,
    [parameter(Mandatory = $true)] [String] $EnabledTriggers # comma separated list
)



##############################################
# Check provided information
##############################################
$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

# Setting one subscription on active (fails with non existing)
Write-Host "Checking existance Subscription Id [$($DataFactorySubscriptionId)]."
$Subscription = Get-AzSubscription -SubscriptionId $DataFactorySubscriptionId `
                                   -WarningAction Ignore
Write-Host "- Subscription [$($Subscription.Name)] found."
Set-AzContext -Subscription $DataFactorySubscriptionId `
              -WarningAction Ignore > $null
Write-Host "- Subscription [$($Subscription.Name)] is active."


# Checking whether resource group exists (fails with non existing)
Write-Host "Checking existance Resource Group [$($DataFactoryResourceGroup)]."
Get-AzResourceGroup -Name $DataFactoryResourceGroup > $null
Write-Host "- Resource Group [$($DataFactoryResourceGroup)] found."


# Checking whether provided data factory exists (fails with non existing)
Write-Host "Checking existance Data Factory [$($DataFactoryName)]."
Get-AzDataFactoryV2 -ResourceGroupName $DataFactoryResourceGroup `
                    -Name $DataFactoryName > $null
Write-Host "- Data Factory [$($DataFactoryName)] found."


# Checking provided triggernames, first split into array
$EnabledTriggersArray = $EnabledTriggers.Split(",")
Write-Host "Checking existance of ($($EnabledTriggersArray.Count)) provided triggernames."


# Loop through all provided triggernames
foreach ($EnabledTrigger in $EnabledTriggersArray)
{ 
    # Get Trigger by name
    $CheckTrigger = Get-AzDataFactoryV2Trigger -ResourceGroupName $DataFactoryResourceGroup `
                                               -DataFactoryName $DataFactoryName `
                                               -Name $EnabledTrigger `
                                               -ErrorAction Ignore # To be able to provide more detailed error

    # Check if trigger was found
    if (!$CheckTrigger)
    {
        throw "Trigger $($EnabledTrigger) not found in data dactory $($DataFactoryName) within resource group $($DataFactoryResourceGroup)"
    }
}
Write-Host "- All ($($EnabledTriggersArray.Count)) provided triggernames found in data dactory $($DataFactoryName) within resource group $($DataFactoryResourceGroup)"



##############################################
# Disable triggers
##############################################
# Check if all trigger should be disabled
if ($DisableAllTriggers)
{
    # Get all enabled triggers and stop them (unless they should be enabled)
    Write-Host "Getting all enabled triggers that should be disabled."
    $CurrentTriggers = Get-AzDataFactoryV2Trigger -ResourceGroupName $DataFactoryResourceGroup `
                                                   -DataFactoryName $DataFactoryName `
                       | Where-Object {$_.RuntimeState -ne 'Stopped'} `
                       | Where-Object {$EnabledTriggersArray.Contains($_.Name) -eq $false}

    # Loop through all found triggers
    Write-Host "- Number of triggers to disable: $($CurrentTriggers.Count)."
    foreach ($CurrentTrigger in $CurrentTriggers)
    {
        # Stop trigger
        Write-Host "- Stopping trigger [$($CurrentTrigger.Name)]."
        Stop-AzDataFactoryV2Trigger -ResourceGroupName $DataFactoryResourceGroup -DataFactoryName $DataFactoryName -Name $CurrentTrigger.Name -Force > $null
    }
}



##############################################
# Enable triggers
##############################################
# Loop through provided triggernames and enable them
Write-Host "Enable all ($($EnabledTriggersArray.Count)) provided triggers."
foreach ($EnabledTrigger in $EnabledTriggersArray)
{                   
    # Get trigger details
    $CheckTrigger = Get-AzDataFactoryV2Trigger -ResourceGroupName $DataFactoryResourceGroup `
                                               -DataFactoryName $DataFactoryName `
                                               -Name $EnabledTrigger

    # Check status of trigger
    if ($CheckTrigger.RuntimeState -ne "Started")
    {
        Write-Host "- Trigger [$($EnabledTrigger)] starting"
        Start-AzDataFactoryV2Trigger -ResourceGroupName $DataFactoryResourceGroup `
                                     -DataFactoryName $DataFactoryName `
                                     -Name $EnabledTrigger `
                                     -Force > $null
    }
    else
    {
        Write-Host "- Trigger [$($EnabledTrigger)] already started"
    }
}

2) YAML Pipeline

You can now extend the existing YAML pipeline with an extra step. Make sure that all parameters for this script are available as variables in the variable group (under Pipelines, Library) and make sure to pass them to the second YAML pipeline as parameters. If you followed the previous blogs then you only need to add EnabledTriggers as variable and a YAML parameter.

          ###################################
          # Enable certain triggers and disable rest
          ###################################
          - task: AzurePowerShell@5
            displayName: '6 Enable certain triggers and disable rest'
            inputs:
              azureSubscription: 'sc_adf-devopssp'
              pwsh: true
              azurePowerShellVersion: LatestVersion
              scriptType: filePath
              scriptPath: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)\s\CICD\powershell\SetTriggers.ps1'
              scriptArguments: > # Use this to avoid newline characters in multiline string
                -DataFactoryName $(DataFactoryName)
                -DataFactoryResourceGroup $(DataFactoryResourceGroupName)
                -DataFactorySubscriptionId $(DataFactorySubscriptionId)
                -DisableAllTriggers $true
                -EnabledTriggers $(EnabledTriggers) # format: "prd_daily_4am,prd_daily_1pm"

The result of running the pipeline

Conclusion
In this post you learned how to enable only certain triggers for a specific environment. This makes it easy to generate a trigger in development for the production environment. The downside (for some) is ofcourse that you get an extra piece of code to maintain. In a next post we will show that you can also accomplish this without writing code via the ARM template. However the trigger property runtimeState cannot be set via the ARM template, so a workaroumd is necessary for the nocode variant.

ADF Release - Update Linked Service while deploying

Case
I'm deploying Azure Data Factory via DevOps pipelines through my DTAP environment. During the deployment I want to change the URL of the Linked Service from Azure Key Vault to point it to the Key Vault of that specific environment. How do I change that Linked Service in DevOps?

ADF Linked Service

Solution
This is possible by changing the ARM template parameter definition which on its turn will switch certain properties into overridable parameters during deployment. There is one downside: you cannot create a parameter for one specific Linked Service, because it will work for all Linked Services with that same property. However you can narrow it down to one particular type of Linked Service (for all Key Vaults in this example). 

1) Check Linked Service

For this example we will override the URL of the Azure Key Vault Linked Service, but first we need to find the actual property name that we want to override.

• In ADF Studio go to Manage (toolbox icon in left menu) and then to Linked Services.
• Now find your Key Vault Linked Service and hover your mouse over .it and click on the code icon {}.
• Now check which property identifies a specific Key Vault. It should be within the typeProperties tag. In this case the baseUrl property contains a URL that points to one specific Key Vault.

baseURL property

Also notice the type property which will be used further on: AzureKeyVault


2) ARM template

Next step is to make this property overridable in the ARM template parameter definition (arm-template-parameters-definition.json). First the easiest way:

• Under the same Manage menu item as step 1 go to ARM template
• Click on Edit parameter configuration
• Now find the baseUrl property within the Linked Services tag and change its value from "=" to "-" and then click on the OK button

Making baseUrl overridable

This will create a new parameter with the name: [LinkedServiceName]_properties_typeProperties_baseUrl

As mentioned before, this will now work for all Linked Services that have a (filled) property called baseUrl. A bit nicer is to instead create a Key Vault specific parameter by adding a piece JSON code below the general tag with the *. The name 'AzureKeyVault' from the code below can be found in the code of step 1.

 
        "AzureKeyVault": {
            "properties": {
                "typeProperties": {
                    "baseUrl": "-"
                }
            }
        },

This will result in the same (long) parameter name, but now only for Linked Services pointing to Azure Key Vault. We can shorten that very long parameter name by adding -:-BaseUrl where the colon : is the separator for the next part of the property. This is the name of the parameter. Adding a minus - in front of that name will remove _properties_typeProperties from the parametername and shorten it to:
[LinkedServiceName]_baseUrl 

        "AzureKeyVault": {
            "properties": {
                "typeProperties": {
                    "baseUrl": "-:-BaseUrl"
                }
            }
        }

This is much nicer. More info about this can be found in the documentation.

3) Adjust release pipeline

If you are using YAML to publish the changes then the only thing you have to change is the overrideParameters property by adding the new parameter ls_kv_bitools_baseUrl and adding either a variable or a hardcoded value. The > behind the property helps you to break the string over multiple lines and keep the YAML code more readable.

          ###################################
          # Deploy ADF Artifact
          ###################################
          - task: AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3
            displayName: '4 Deploy ADF Artifact'
            inputs:
              deploymentScope: 'Resource Group'
              azureResourceManagerConnection: 'sc_mcacc-adf-devopssp'
              subscriptionId: $(DataFactorySubscriptionId)
              action: 'Create Or Update Resource Group'
              resourceGroupName: $(DataFactoryResourceGroupName)
              location: 'West Europe'
              templateLocation: 'Linked artifact'
              csmFile: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/ArmTemplatesArtifact/ARMTemplateForFactory.json'
              csmParametersFile: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/ArmTemplatesArtifact/ARMTemplateParametersForFactory.json'
              overrideParameters: > 
                -factoryName $(DataFactoryName) 
                -ls_kv_bitools_baseUrl "https://bitools-prd.vault.azure.net/"
              deploymentMode: 'Incremental'

            env: 
                SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN: $(System.AccessToken)

If you are not sure about which parameternames you can use in the YAML, then you can lookup that name by exporting the ARM template under ARM template. Then check arm_template.json or arm_template_parameters.json

export template to find parametername

And if you're using the Release pipelines with the ARM template deployment task then you can just go to the Override template parameters property, click on the edit button and replace the value with a new value or a variable from a variable group.

ARM template deployment - Override template parameters

Conclusion

In this post you learned how to override properties of a Linked Service during deployment via Azure DevOps. This allows you to point your Linked Service to the correct service for that specific environment. The most likely candidate for this is probably the Linked Service pointing to Azure Key Vault where you store all other connection details.

In a previous post we also showed you how to change Global Parameters during deployment and in a next post we will show you how to change triggers during deployment because you probably don't want to use the same triggers on development, test, acceptance and production.

ADF Release - Set global params during deployment

Case
I'm using global parameters in my Azure Data Factory project and I want to change their values during deployment through my DTAP environments. How do I do that?

ADF Global Parameters

Solution
In this post we are only focusing on the deployment part of the DevOps YAML pipeline. If you do not have a pipeline yet then please read the complete story of configuring the Development ADF and releasing it to other Factories first.

1) Include in ARM template
First make sure that in the pane of the Global Parameters the checkbox "Include in ARM template" is checked. This will add the parameters to the ARM template which will make them available as a parameters during deployment.

Check Include in ARM template

2) Getting name of parameter

The global parameter will get a slightly different name in the ARM template. For example: myGlobParam becomes dataFactory_properties_globalParameters_myGlobParam_value. You can check that name by exporting the ARM template under ARM template. Then check arm_template.json or arm_template_parameters.json

Find the parameter name

An other option is to hit the publish button and then check the (not used) adf_publish branch in the repository.

Find the parameter name

3) Adjust release pipeline

If you are using YAML to publish the changes then the only thing you have to change is the overrideParameters property by adding the new parameter dataFactory_properties_globalParameters_myGlobParam_value and adding either a variable or a hardcoded value. The > behind the property helps you to break the string over multiple lines and keep the YAML code more readable.

          ###################################
          # Deploy ADF Artifact
          ###################################
          - task: AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3
            displayName: '4 Deploy ADF Artifact'
            inputs:
              deploymentScope: 'Resource Group'
              azureResourceManagerConnection: 'sc_mcacc-adf-devopssp'
              subscriptionId: $(DataFactorySubscriptionId)
              action: 'Create Or Update Resource Group'
              resourceGroupName: $(DataFactoryResourceGroupName)
              location: 'West Europe'
              templateLocation: 'Linked artifact'
              csmFile: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/ArmTemplatesArtifact/ARMTemplateForFactory.json'
              csmParametersFile: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/ArmTemplatesArtifact/ARMTemplateParametersForFactory.json'
              overrideParameters: > 
                -factoryName $(DataFactoryName) 
                -dataFactory_properties_globalParameters_myGlobParam_value "Test123"
              deploymentMode: 'Incremental'

            env: 
                SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN: $(System.AccessToken)

After deployment you can see the new parameter value

And if you're using the Release pipelines with the ARM template deployment task then you can just go to the Override template parameters property, click on the edit button and replace the value with a new value or a variable from a variable group.

ARM template deployment - Override template parameters

Conclusion

In this post you learned how to use Global Parameters from ADF as ARM template parameters for Azure Data Factory. This allows you to use different settings in the various factories in you DTAP environments. In a next post we will show you how to override properties from for example a Linked Service or a Trigger that should get a different value in acceptance or production.