Microsoft Fabric: A Comprehensive Guide to Features and Benefits

Microsoft Fabric is an all-in-one analytics solution that brings together new and existing components from Power BI, Azure Synapse and Azure Data Factory into a single integrated environment on a Software as a Service foundation. Fabric utilizes Power BI to offer real-time analytics experiences and business intelligence. It also builds upon the foundation of Azure Synapse Analytics while introducing new architectural horizons and capabilities. While Fabric continues to support existing Azure Data Factory (ADF) activities, it also introduces new ones (for example, the Office 365 Outlook activity is now available in Fabric).

why use fabric

Microsoft Fabric centralizes data collection and curation, eliminating data sprawl and ensuring that information is easily accessible from anywhere. This simplifies data management, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring that users have access to the most up-to-date information. Fabric also offers powerful AI models that can be easily managed on a single foundation. This speeds up decision-making and makes business operations more agile.

The Fabric platform empowers every user by providing them with the tools they need to act on insights. Users can access and analyze data in real-time through other Microsoft 365 apps like Excel or Teams, enabling them to make informed decisions quickly and effectively. With built-in security, governance, and compliance features, organizations can connect people and data with confidence, knowing that their information is safe and compliant with industry standards.

fabric foundation

Fabric combines various experiences like Data Engineering & Data Science, Data Factory, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Analytics, and Power BI onto a unified SaaS foundation.

  • Data Engineering & Data Science - The new Synapse data engineering platform in Fabric offers a top-notch Spark platform. This enables data engineers to transform large datasets at scale. The platform also fosters collaboration by making data more accessible in the lakehouse. Data scientists can also collaborate with data engineering and business intelligence teams to efficiently build complex AI models.

  • Data Factory - Fabric's Data Factory allows organizations to unify their hybrid and multicloud data setups. Users can find value through a data integration experience that combines the simplicity of Microsoft Power Query with the scale and strength of Data Factory.

  • Data Warehouse - Synapse Data Warehouse provides industry-leading SQL performance and scale. This new platform enables data engineers, data warehousing professionals, and BI analysts to work on a unified open format, ensuring a single source of truth for all users.

  • Real-Time Analytics - Synapse Real-Time Analytics allows organizations to explore data and perform real-time analysis on large volumes of data streaming from applications, websites, and IoT devices, with high performance and low latency.

  • Power BI - Power BI is a data visualization tool that can help you create, share, and consume business insights. With Copilot in Power BI, Microsoft is integrating powerful language models into Power BI across all layers to enhance user productivity and derive more insights from data. Copilot in Fabric and Power BI are also available in public preview and users can enable Copilot to start using the capabilities by following the guidance here.

The integration of these various experiences in Fabric offers several benefits:

  • Access to a comprehensive suite of seamlessly integrated analytics within the industry.

  • Consistent experiences across familiar and user-friendly platforms.

  • Simplified access and reuse of assets for developers.

  • A unified data lake that enables data retention in its original location while utilizing preferred analytics tools.

  • Streamlined administration and governance across all integrated experiences.

Enhancing Security with Microsoft Fabric 

With Fabric, IT teams can centrally set up core enterprise functionalities, ensuring that permissions are automatically enforced across all services. Data sensitivity labels are automatically applied to all items within the suite, simplifying management and ensuring consistent security measures.

Another way Fabric enhances security is through the fundamental building block for all of its services - the data lake. Referred to as OneLake, Microsoft Fabric Lake is known as the “OneDrive for data.” It is a complete, rich, enterprise-wide data lake provided as SaaS. All data stored in OneLake is encrypted at rest using Microsoft-managed keys, which are rotated appropriately per compliance requirements. As a result, you can ensure that your organizational data is always secure.

Implementing Microsoft Fabric

As of November, Fabric is now generally available through a Power BI Pro or Premium per user/capacity license and is billed monthly or yearly, with a monthly commitment. Customers can also sign up for a 60-day free trial. Fabric workloads are now also generally available through Azure and are billed per second with no time commitment.

If you’re already using Power BI and want to enable Fabric, it only takes 15 minutes to make the change. You will start to see the effects of Fabric within your organizational data after making the switch.

Opkalla is ready to help you and your organization discover the possibilities of Fabric as your Technology Advisor and Microsoft CSP. Contact us today!

Microsoft 365Cameron Keziah