Our Senior Principal, Brian Bønk, has been along on the journey of the Microsoft Fabric platform since the very early preview versions and way before it was announced. His recurring and acknowledged MVP status on the Data Platform from Microsoft gives him direct impact on the product’s future, and he has deep insights into every aspect of the different data platform offerings from Microsoft. As one of the extremely few in the world with both an MVP status and as a FastTrack Recognized Solution Architect, Brian knows his way around the Microsoft product offerings.
This article will guide you through the platform and how it can leverage your current or future work and insights using the data & analytics platform, Microsoft Fabric.
Microsoft Fabric: An Emerging Data Analytics Solution
Microsoft launched the Fabric platform at the Build conference in 2023 as the all-in-one analytics solution as a SaaS service with everything built into the platform.
This platform is designed to consolidate a multitude of tasks involved in data handling and analytics, such as data engineering, data science, data integration, business intelligence, real-time processing, and data governance, into a unified SaaS offering.
Building upon the capabilities of established tools like Power BI, Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse, and Azure Data Lake, Microsoft Fabric weaves these components into an integrated analytics platform. It presents a comprehensive solution that revolutionizes enterprise analytics, streamlining the process and reducing the complexity typically associated with managing multiple disparate services.
As a SaaS product, Microsoft Fabric brings a new level of simplicity and efficiency to the table, offering an end-to-end analytics solution that stands to redefine how enterprises approach their data strategies.
Microsoft Fabric consists of several components, each tailored for specific tasks and personas:
Key Components of Microsoft Fabric
OneLake
The one place for storing your data. All services in Fabric use the OneLake service to store data. The OneLake are not only for Microsoft services, it also embraces the different cloud vendors outside of Microsoft for easy reading and ingestion of data.
These components collectively make Microsoft Fabric one of the most comprehensive data analytics platforms in the industry, providing an end-to-end analytical solution that is hard to ignore.
Looking Towards the Future
Looking Towards the Future
As the product is continuously evolving, the platform will be more and more robust and feature-rich. The current version of the platform can do almost everything and will play a significant role in the market for SaaS platforms tailored against the data & analytics area.
We see Microsoft Fabric as more than just a tool for the development phase of a data platform. It is poised to significantly impact the ongoing usage and management of the platform within the organization. This includes aspects like data governance (with the added capabilities of extending the features with PurView directly), accessibility, and the ease of applying analytics and business intelligence insights across different levels and functions of the organization.
The go-to solution for analytics needs
Our impressions are extremely positive. For clients that have chosen Microsoft as their service provider, we know that Microsoft Fabric is the go-to solution for their data and analytics needs. The approach of having a single, integrated platform that streamlines complex processes is incredibly appealing, and we are excited to help our client see the potential and realize their full analytical workloads with the platform.
With our certified consultants and experience in implementation, we can help in every aspect of the platform. From advisory on approaches and architectural selections through the project to the implementation of the platform.
With our Advanced Specialization og Analytics in Azure, we have the acknowledged processes and methods approved by Microsoft to help our clients with a high level of quality and security for our clients. The Advanced Specialization also gives us access to direct support in both pre-sales, sales, architectural discussions, and implementation processes for each project. With Microsoft’s funding possibilities, we can also help in the process of getting monetary support for PoC and implementation.
Brian Bønk, Senior Principal at Intellishore
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We look forward to hearing from you.
The Core of Microsoft Fabric: OneLake
OneLake, the heart of Microsoft Fabric, is a unified data lake built on Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2. This single, unified storage system is designed to eliminate data silos, simplifying data sharing and enforcing policy and security settings uniformly and centrally.
The structure of OneLake is hierarchical, providing a single-pane-of-glass file-system namespace across users, regions, and even clouds. It enables developers and business units to create their own workspaces, ingest data into their own lakehouses, and start processing, analyzing, and collaborating on the data.
All Microsoft Fabric compute experiences, such as Data Engineering, Data Warehouse, Data Factory, Power BI, and Real-Time Intelligence, are prewired to OneLake. Additionally, OneLake introduces the Shortcut feature for instant mounting of existing PaaS and SaaS storage accounts, extending to other storage systems and allowing data composition and analysis across clouds.
Real-Time Hub – your one place for all streaming data
The Real-Time Hub is a free tool in the Fabric platform that leverages the easy overview of what is happening inside the platform around streaming data. From IoT devices, telemetry, or log events, the Real-Time Hub gives you a single point of access to get the insights ready in a timely manner.
With the abilities to do data processing with Eventstreams, analytics with the Eventhub, reporting and visualization using the Real-Time Dashboards or reach to events and trends using the Data Activator service, the Real-Time Hub embraces the entire need and demand for easy handling of streaming data.
