Questions

1. Which SQL Server versions and editions have machine learning services?
   Machine learning services (formerly called R Services) are offered within SQL Server from version 2016. The machine learning services can be installed with every edition of SQL Server.
2. How do we configure machine learning services?
   Machine learning services must be enabled by an SQL Server administrator using the sp_configure 'external scripts enabled' stored procedure.
3. What is the best method of data exploration?
   There isn't a best option. Every developer prefers a different technology for basic exploration of the data. For example, descriptive statistics, and uniqueness of values. Alternatively, to look at the amount of NULLs in columns, T-SQL queries or the SSIS Data Profiling Task are very useful. For more sophisticated exploration, we will probably use languages such as R or Python...