Glossary
What is Microsoft Fabric?
Microsoft Fabric is Microsoft's data platform that combines data integration, data warehousing, data engineering and Power BI, among other things, in a single SaaS environment. The data comes together in OneLake.
Microsoft Fabric explained
Fabric brings together components that used to be separate Azure services: Data Factory for data integration, lakehouses and warehouses for storage, notebooks for data engineering and data science, real-time analytics and Power BI for reporting. Everything runs on a shared capacity and reads from and writes to OneLake.
You pay for Fabric through a capacity, the so-called F SKUs, which is shared across all components. Power BI is now itself part of Fabric, so many organisations already use parts of it without calling it that.
Fabric is powerful but also broad. For an organisation with a few source systems and a handful of reports, a simpler set-up with one data warehouse can work just as well and be easier to manage. So start by looking at what you really need.
Example
A larger branch of Acme Groothandel is considering Fabric to bring web shop data, warehouse sensor data and ERP data together in a lakehouse. For standard financial reporting, the team is sticking with the existing data warehouse and Power BI for now.
Microsoft Fabric in ENABLE
ENABLE has no integration with Microsoft Fabric: the SQL Explorer and the Data API do not read from OneLake, a Fabric lakehouse or a Fabric warehouse, but from a PostgreSQL data warehouse. What ENABLE does do is embed Power BI reports through the Power BI API and a service principal.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Microsoft Fabric and Power BI?
Power BI is the reporting component; Microsoft Fabric is the broader data platform that Power BI is now part of. Fabric adds data integration, lakehouses, warehouses and data engineering, among other things.
Do you need Microsoft Fabric for Power BI?
No, you can use Power BI with Pro or Premium Per User licences without the other Fabric components. Fabric capacity only becomes necessary when you want to use those components or run reports on a capacity.
What is the difference between Microsoft Fabric and Azure Synapse?
Azure Synapse is an earlier Azure service for data warehousing and analytics. Fabric builds on that technology but bundles more components into a single SaaS environment with shared storage in OneLake.
Further reading
- SolutionMicrosoft Fabric: what it is and when it fitsWhat Microsoft Fabric is, when it fits and how it relates to ENABLE.Read more
- IntegrationPower BI embedded portal: share dashboards securelyPower BI reports embedded in your own portal, with access by role and RLS.Read more
- ResourcesWhat is a data warehouse? Explained and comparedA data warehouse is a central database in which you bring together data from different source systems, such as your ERP, CRM and webshop, clean it up and organise it so that you can report on it and analyse it effectively. A source system is built to process transactions; a data warehouse is built for reading, comparing and keeping history. A data lake stores raw data in any format, and a data lakehouse combines the storage of a lake with the structure of a warehouse.Read more
- SolutionBuild a data platform: layers, choices and approachFrom sources to dashboards and AI: how a data platform is structured.Read more
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