You might have noticed the buzz around Microsoft’s recently announced service offering called Microsoft Fabric. So have we! In this article we take a closer look at the product and discuss if it is worth the hype.
For What?
Microsoft has used two years to integrate its data management products to be used on one platform. They have tried to make them work seamlessly together so that it would be easy to access, analyze and govern the data. Microsoft also wanted to unify different data sources into one, to make accessing the data easier. In addition, Microsoft Fabric aims to make the tools needed in today’s business, available for those needing only limited resources, but at the same time, make them scalable for those, whose data demand is rising exponentially. All and all, Microsoft Fabric is supposed to combine all the different tools, needed to manage and analyze data, into one platform where the data can be processed seamlessly by the customer.
All in One
Microsoft Fabric includes everything a business would need to manage and process its data, while keeping it governed. As a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, Microsoft Fabric is simple to use and guarantees the quality of the integration of the applications. Fabric enables you to store all your data in one data lake called OneLake. The whole organization can store all analytics data in one unified data lake without it being copied to multiple places. With Fabric Power BI, data in OneLake can be accessed via Direct Lake Mode which aims to solve the latency and speed problems related to previous Import and DirectQuery Modes.
Other tools in Microsoft Fabric are Azure Data factory for data integration and Synapse Data Engineering, Data Warehousing, Data Science and Real-Time Analytics. These Microsoft’s previously existed tools enable your business to stay on top of your data. The integration of these applications gives even more opportunities to utilize the data. There is also Power BI for Business Intelligence. Integrating it with other tools in Fabric, opens up exciting opportunities to analyze your data. Coupling the Power BI with OneLake makes it easy and convenient to access and analyze data. Microsoft has even added a copilot to assist you in visualizing the data. Fabric really elevates the well-known BI tool up to date.
As a completely new application Microsoft has added exclusively to Fabric a tool that enables your business to set triggers and threshold levels for certain data values. With Data Activator you can automate actions based on data. Data Activator linked to Power BI let’s you turn insight to action, as actions can be automatically conducted when a value from a data set passes the set value. Microsoft Purview completes Microsoft Fabric as it helps you govern and protect your data.
Applications Working Together
But does combining bunch of existing products under an umbrella bring any advantage for the user? Well yes, because it makes things simpler. The whole team including Data Engineers, Data Scientists and Data analysts are able to work in the same environment and can focus on the project and not getting all the different tools to work together. So, we can conclude that these applications integrated into Fabric are more valuable than what these applications are just combined on their own.
Fabric is currently undergoing a rigorous testing phase in a private preview, and it’s natural to anticipate some minor challenges along the way. However, even at this early stage, the service’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering is already making a remarkable impression. Looking ahead, the future development path for Fabric holds great potential. This SaaS platform would simplify organizations data management and save space and computing. Direct Lake Mode sounds interesting if the promise of reducing updating time of Power BI data updates can be easily implemented to current setup. We advise you to keep your ears on the groove as we keep you informed.
