In the cloud data world, Microsoft Azure and Snowflake often come up as leading choices for building scalable data platforms. While they overlap in some capabilities, their core strengths and ecosystem focus make them suited to different use cases.
When it comes to data visualization and business intelligence (BI), Power BI and Tableau are two of the most popular platforms in the world. Both turn raw data into insights, but they differ in cost, ecosystem fit, and flexibility.
When organizations talk about becoming data-driven, the debate often comes down to where should data live and how should it be structured? That’s where the Data Lake and the Data Warehouse come into play. Both are critical, but their purposes and strengths differ.
When it comes to building a modern data platform in Azure, two technologies often spark debate: Microsoft Fabric and Databricks. Both are powerful. Both can process, transform, and analyze data. But they serve different purposes, and the smartest organizations know when to use each.
Microsoft Fabric brings together data engineering, data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence into one unified platform. With so many capabilities available, organizations often ask: How do we get the most out of Fabric today while preparing for what’s coming next? This post shares practical performance tuning tips, cost optimization strategies, and a look at the Fabric roadmap based on the latest Microsoft updates.
In today’s data-driven world, many business scenarios demand insights not in hours or days, but in seconds. From monitoring IoT devices to tracking live transactions, real-time analytics enables organizations to act immediately. Microsoft Fabric delivers this capability through KQL databases and event streams, making it easier to ingest, query, and analyze fast-moving data at scale.
Data becomes valuable when it’s turned into insights that drive action. In Microsoft Fabric, this is where Power BI shines. By connecting directly to Lakehouses and Warehouses in Fabric, you can build interactive dashboards and reports, then publish and share them securely across your organization.
In Microsoft Fabric, raw data from multiple sources flows into the OneLake environment. But raw data isn’t always ready for analytics. It needs to be cleaned, reshaped, and enriched before it powers business intelligence, AI, or advanced analytics. That’s where Dataflows Gen2 come in. They let you prepare and transform data at scale inside Fabric, without needing heavy coding, while still integrating tightly with other Fabric workloads.
In Microsoft Fabric, Data Factory is the powerhouse behind that process. It’s the next generation of Azure Data Factory, built right into the Fabric platform; making it easier than ever to: - Connect to hundreds of data sources - Transform and clean data on the fly - Schedule and automate ingestion (without writing code)
A Lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric combines the scalability and flexibility of a data lake with the structure and performance of a data warehouse. It’s an all-in-one approach for storing, processing, and analyzing both structured and unstructured data.
OneLake is Microsoft Fabric’s built-in data lake, designed to store data in open formats like Delta Parquet and make it instantly available to all Fabric experiences (Lakehouse, Data Factory, Power BI, Real-Time Analytics).
If you’re starting with Microsoft Fabric, the first thing you’ll need is a workspace, it is a central hub where all data-related assets live. Think of it as your project’s headquarters: datasets, pipelines, Lakehouses, dashboards, and governance settings are all managed here.
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