Introduction

Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end analytics platform that provides a single, integrated environment for data professionals and the business to collaborate on data projects. Fabric provides a set of integrated services that enable you to ingest, store, process, and analyze data in a single environment.

This module introduces the Fabric platform, discusses who Fabric is for, and explores Fabric services.

Explore end-to-end analytics with Microsoft Fabric

Scalable analytics can be complex, fragmented, and expensive. Microsoft Fabric simplifies analytics solutions by providing a single, easy-to-use product that integrates various tools and services into one platform.

Fabric is a unified software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform where all data is stored in a single open format in OneLake. OneLake is accessible by all analytics engines in the platform, ensuring scalability, cost-effectiveness, and accessibility from anywhere with an internet connection.

OneLake

OneLake is Fabric's centralized data storage architecture that enables collaboration by eliminating the need to move or copy data between systems. OneLake unifies your data across regions and clouds into a single logical lake without moving or duplicating data.

OneLake is built on Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) and supports various formats, including Delta, Parquet, CSV, and JSON. All compute engines in Fabric automatically store their data in OneLake, making it directly accessible without the need for movement or duplication. For tabular data, the analytical engines in Fabric write data in delta-parquet format and all engines interact with the format seamlessly.

Shortcuts are references to files or storage locations external to OneLake, allowing you to access existing cloud data without copying it. Shortcuts ensure data consistency and enable Fabric to stay in sync with the source.

Workspaces

In Microsoft Fabric, workspaces serve as logical containers that help you organize and manage your data, reports, and other assets. They provide a clear separation of resources, making it easier to control access and maintain security.

Each workspace has its own set of permissions, ensuring that only authorized users can view or modify its contents. This structure supports team collaboration while maintaining strict access control for both business and IT users.

Workspaces allow you to manage compute resources and integrate with Git for version control. You can optimize performance and cost by configuring compute settings, while Git integration helps track changes, collaborate on code, and maintain a history of your work.

Administration and governance

Fabric's OneLake is centrally governed and open for collaboration. Data is secured and governed in one place, which allows users to easily find and access the data they need. Fabric administration is centralized in the Admin portal.

In the admin portal you can manage groups and permissions, configure data sources and gateways, and monitor usage and performance. You can also access the Fabric admin APIs and SDKs in the admin portal, which can automate common tasks and integrate Fabric with other systems.

The OneLake catalog helps you analyze, monitor, and maintain data governance. It provides guidance on sensitivity labels, item metadata, and data refresh status, offering insights into the governance status and actions for improvement.

Explore data teams and Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric's unified data analytics platform makes it easier for data professionals to collaborate on projects. Fabric increases collaboration between data professionals by removing data silos and the need for multiple systems.

Traditional roles and challenges

In a traditional analytics development process, data teams often face several challenges due to the division of data tasks and workflows.

Data engineers process and curate data for analysts, who then use it to create business reports. This process requires extensive coordination, often leading to delays and misinterpretations.

Data analysts often need to perform downstream data transformations before creating Power BI reports. This process is time-consuming and can lack the necessary context, making it harder for analysts to connect directly with the data.

Data scientists face difficulties integrating native data science techniques with existing systems, which are often complex, and makes it challenging to efficiently provide data-driven insights.

Evolution of collaborative workflows

Microsoft Fabric simplifies the analytics development process by unifying tools into a SaaS platform. Fabric allows different roles to collaborate effectively without duplicating efforts.

• Data engineers can ingest, transform, and load data directly into OneLake using Pipelines, which automate workflows and support scheduling. They can store data in lakehouses, using the Delta-Parquet format for efficient storage and versioning. Notebooks provide advanced scripting capabilities for complex transformations.
• Data analysts can transform data upstream using dataflows and connect directly to OneLake with Direct Lake mode, reducing the need for downstream transformations. They can create interactive reports more efficiently using Power BI.
• Data scientists can use integrated notebooks with support for Python and Spark to build and test machine learning models. They can store and access data in lakehouses and integrate with Azure Machine Learning to operationalize and deploy models.
• Analytics engineers bridge the gap between data engineering and analysis by curating data assets in lakehouses, ensuring data quality, and enabling self-service analytics. They can create semantic models in Power BI to organize and present data effectively.
• Low-to-no-code users and citizen developers can discover curated datasets through the OneLake Hub and use Power BI templates to quickly create reports and dashboards. They can also use dataflows to perform simple ETL tasks without relying on data engineers.

Enable and use Microsoft Fabric

Before you can explore the end-to-end capabilities of Microsoft Fabric, it must be enabled for your organization. You might need to work with your IT department to enable Fabric for your organization, including one of the following roles:

• Fabric admin (formerly Power BI admin): Manages Fabric settings and configurations.
• Power Platform admin: Oversees Power Platform services, including Fabric.
• Microsoft 365 admin: Manages organization-wide Microsoft services, including Fabric.

Enable Microsoft Fabric

Admins can enable Fabric in the Admin portal > Tenant settings in the Power BI service. Fabric can be enabled for the entire organization or for specific Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Entra security groups. Admins can also delegate this ability to other users at the capacity level.

Create workspaces

Workspaces are collaborative environments where you can create and manage items like lakehouses, warehouses, and reports. All data is stored in OneLake and accessed through workspaces. Workspaces also support data lineage view, providing a visual view of data flow and dependencies to enhance transparency and decision-making.

In Workspace settings, you can configure:

• License type to use Fabric features.
• OneDrive access for the workspace.
• Azure Data Lake Gen2 Storage connection.
• Git integration for version control.
• Spark workload settings for performance optimization.

You can manage workspace access through four roles: admin, contributor, member, and viewer. These roles apply to all items in a workspace and should be reserved for collaboration. For more granular access control, use item-level permissions based on business needs.

Discover data with OneLake catalog

The OneLake catalog in Microsoft Fabric helps users easily find and access various data sources within their organization. Users explore and connect to data sources, ensuring they have the right data for their needs. Users only see items shared with them. Here are some considerations when using OneLake Hub:

• Narrow results by workspaces or domains (if implemented).
• Explore default categories to quickly locate relevant data.
• Filter by keyword or item type.

Create items with Fabric workloads

After you create your Fabric enabled workspace, you can start creating items in Fabric. Each workload in Fabric offers different item types for storing, processing, and analyzing data. Fabric workloads include:

• Data Engineering: Create lakehouses and operationalize workflows to build, transform, and share your data estate.
• Data Factory: Ingest, transform, and orchestrate data.
• Data Science: Detect trends, identify outliers, and predict values using machine learning.
• Data Warehouse: Combine multiple sources in a traditional warehouse for analytics.
• Databases: Create and manage databases with tools to insert, query, and extract data.
• Industry Solutions: Use out-of-the-box industry data solutions.
• Real-Time Intelligence: Process, monitor, and analyze streaming data.
• Power BI: Create reports and dashboards to make data-driven decisions.

Fabric integrates capabilities from existing Microsoft tools like Power BI, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Azure Data Factory into a unified platform. Fabric also supports a data mesh architecture, allowing decentralized data ownership while maintaining centralized governance. This eliminates the need for direct Azure resource access, simplifying data workflows.

Revision insight

• Fabric is a unified SaaS analytics platform. All engines read and write to OneLake in open formats, especially Delta-Parquet for tabular data.
• OneLake centralizes storage and governance. Use Shortcuts to reference external cloud data without copying.
• Workspaces are the collaboration and security boundary. Use workspace roles for broad collaboration and item-level permissions for granular control. Git integration supports versioning.
• Governance is centralized through the Admin portal and OneLake catalog for discovery, sensitivity, and refresh visibility.
• Collaborative workflows: data engineers build pipelines and lakehouses; analysts use dataflows and Direct Lake; data scientists use notebooks and integrate with Azure ML; analytics engineers curate semantic models; citizen developers leverage curated datasets and templates.
• Enabling Fabric: Admin portal → Tenant settings. Can scope to Entra groups or delegate at capacity level.
• Core workloads: Data Engineering, Data Factory, Data Science, Data Warehouse, Databases, Industry Solutions, Real-Time Intelligence, Power BI.