Microsoft Fabric is an innovative new analytics platform for data-driven organizations. The MS Fabric toolset is impacting data-driven organizations across industries for the better, and Kenway is continually learning how to leverage these data advancements to solve clients’ unique challenges. This blog will explore what Microsoft Fabric is, why the tools the platform offers stand out from other data analytics tools, and how you can leverage it for success in your organization.

WHAT IS MICROSOFT FABRIC?

Microsoft Fabric is an all-in-one analytics solution that covers everything from data movement and business intelligence to real-time analytics and data science. It allows an organization to combine data, storage, engineering, integration, and visualization all in one place. 

Microsoft Fabric removes the need to piece together different data services from multiple vendors. Instead, Fabric allows users to utilize a highly integrated, end-to-end, and easy-to-use product designed to simplify analytic needs.

MICROSOFT FABRIC’S VALUE PROPOSITION

MSFTs unique value proposition stands out because it removes traditional barriers that arise in a data-driven organization, which ultimately improves the overall speed to market. Fabric enables a single data persona to perform data ingestion, ELT/ETL transformations, data modeling, and build data products within a single platform. 

In other words, data technology resources no longer need to be set up independently and less time needs to be spent tying disparate pieces of your data architecture together. Fabric does all of this for you!

EXPLORING MICROSOFT FABRIC’S FEATURES

Several of Microsoft Fabric’s most noteworthy functionalities stand out as: 

• Co-Pilot Integration: Microsoft Azure’s AI tool Co-Pilot is incorporated as a fundamental component of MS Fabric, further enabling AI data capabilities for productivity and ease of product use. 

Co-pilot’s functions vary across different Fabric offerings: 

1. It acts as a generative AI for Power BI through automatic report generation.
2. It serves as an “AI-enhanced toolset” for Fabric’s Data Factory
3. It provides support for Data Science and Data Engineering initiatives through code completion and generation, routine task automation, and supplying industry standard code templates.

• OneLake: A key feature in Microsoft Fabric’s offering is OneLake, which is the sole data lake for an entire organization within Fabric. OneLake removes the need for multiple data lakes within one organization, drives improved collaboration, and reduces data redundancy by housing a company’s core data assets within a single, central location. 

• Short Cuts: A Short Cut is a data object within Microsoft Fabric that ‘points’ to data stored in another location, allowing for that data to be referenced and utilized without being copied or duplicated. Short Cuts remove the need for data duplication and streamline data sharing, innovation, and experimentation.

• Data Hub: Data Hub is a discoverability tool that enables users to efficiently search for data assets stored within their organization’s Fabric. 

In addition to filtering and searching based on workspace, name, owner, and type, data items can now be classified and filtered by domain, and enterprise-grade data products can be promoted/certified. Data Hub has the potential to greatly improve collaboration and governance within an organization as data items are made more visible across teams within the Fabric OneLake. 

• Notebook Co-editing: Notebook Co-editing allows multiple users to edit a notebook at once, similar to how the cursor and edits of other users are visible in Google Docs. This will aid in collaboration, alleviate overwriting, and merge conflicts when multiple users collaborate on a notebook simultaneously.

MICROSOFT FABRIC COMPONENTS

MS Fabric offers a variety of analytic experiences with far-reaching capabilities and integrations. 

Data Engineering: Fabric leverages Apache Spark to provide many different data engineering capabilities such as creating and leveraging a data lakehouse, designing pipelines, defining Spark definitions, and more. 

Data Factory: This data-transformation tool enables users to ingest and transform  data across many sources including lakehouses, warehouses, and more.

Data Science: Users are empowered to build and leverage machine learning models to derive insights and predictions that can be easily integrated into Power BI visualizations. 

Real-Time Intelligence: This solution is built to handle event-driven scenarios, data logs, and live data streams gathered across multiple devices, data sources, and IoT. This allows organizations to process and leverage live data to further their analytic capabilities. 

Industry Insights: Fabric provides data solutions that are suited to solve industry-specific issues for multiple industries, including retail, manufacturing, and healthcare. 

Power BI: Power BI serves as the visualization component of MS Fabric, enabling users to visualize and derive insights from their data and analysis.

LOOKING FORWARD

Microsoft Fabric is an exciting and needed development for the world of data analytics, and we are excited to see how it continues to grow and expand over time. We will be writing about our exploration journey into this new suite of tools in a blog series that you will be able to read here. This series will help answer questions such as:

• Can I leverage the data I already have stored elsewhere with OneLake?
• Can I create a traditional medallion architecture within Fabric?
• Is it possible to integrate other cloud or on-prem application workloads with Fabric?
• What does the roadmap for Fabric look like and will I be stuck with vendor lock-in?
• How does Fabric change the analytics infrastructure I have today?
• How do I make Fabric work in a large organization where security, segregation of duties, and scalability are important?
• How do I incorporate DevOps best practices with Fabric?
• How easy is it to move from traditional Power BI dashboards to advanced machine learning in Fabric?

TRANSFORM YOUR ANALYTICS INFRASTRUCTURE WITH KENWAY

Ready to transform the way you manage and analyze data with Microsoft Fabric? Whether you’re aiming to streamline data movement, optimize your analytics infrastructure, or drive actionable insights, our team is here to help. Reach out to start your path to data-driven success.

FAQs

• What are the core features of Microsoft Fabric, and how do they empower businesses?

MSFT Fabric’s core features include a singular centralized data lake, various data manipulation, analysis, visualization tools, and AI integration. Together, these features allow organizations to better maintain and leverage their data. They help remove data redundancy, improve data discoverability, and provide a suite of tools that all empower organizations to get the most out of their data.

• What are the different analytic experiences available in Microsoft Fabric, and who are they designed for?

MS Fabric has components for data engineering, data science, data warehouses, Power BI, and more. These tools in Fabric exist to further simplify data analytics for engineers, analysts, collaborators, and additional organizational stakeholders. 

• What makes Microsoft Fabric stand out from other data analytics platforms in the market?

Microsoft Fabric is set apart through its focus on empowering all users to receive more from their organization’s data. MSFT Fabric allows organizations to efficiently and easily maintain data while also providing a comprehensive set of tools to gain insights from the data. 

Many third parties offer individual data analytics products that serve customers well, but those services lack the comprehensive capabilities that Microsoft Fabric provides. Rather than piecemealing the data services your organization needs, Fabric has it all in one platform.

• How can businesses benefit from Microsoft Fabric's integration with Azure services?

If you’re wondering what’s going to happen to your current Azure services, don’t worry – those services won’t go away. MS Fabric seamlessly integrates with Azure services so you can experience a fully unified and functional data analytics platform all in one place.