Every record has the same fields, because the data must fit a schema fixed before storage; relational tables are its usual home.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Structured data in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Schema
The middle part of a Unity Catalog name (
catalog.schema.table), grouping tables, views, volumes, functions and models inside a catalog. A grant on it covers everything in it now and later, and nothing inside can be reached withoutUSE SCHEMA. - General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change.
Related terms
- Delimited text
Plain text where a chosen separator character divides fields and a terminator closes every row; CSV, TSV and fixed-width files are common forms. Good for structured data that many programs need to read.
- JSON
Text-based format for structured data. ARM templates and Cosmos DB documents are written in it, and most Azure REST APIs exchange request and response bodies as application/json.
- Relational database
Tables of rows and columns hold structured data here, one table per entity type, with keys linking the tables together and SQL used to query them.
- Relational table
The table used by relational databases to hold structured data: all rows share the same columns, each column has a set data type, and individual values may be left empty (NULL).