With services like Azure AI Foundry, you can not only access generative AI, but build your own agents, tailor-made for your use cases. Creating these custom AI experiences requires data—lots of it. Data is the foundation on which AI is built, and the simple fact is AI is only as good as the data it’s based on. As you enter a future built on AI, you need a data estate capable of fueling AI innovation across your organization. This can be a challenging prospect for most organizations whose data environments have grown organically over time with specialized and fragmented solutions.

That’s why we introduced Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft OneLake, Fabric’s unified data lake. With OneLake, you can access your entire multi-cloud data estate from a single data lake that spans the entire organization. OneLake can act as the central, accessible location for comprehensive data access and management.​ And once connected to OneLake, your teams can use the array of data and analytics tools in Fabric to integrate, transform, model, and prepare your data for any AI project—all in a pre-integrated and optimized SaaS environment.

Today we are going to focus on why Fabric and OneLake are the ideal data tools to fuel your AI projects in AI Foundry. First, we will talk through how you can unify your data estate on OneLake, then cover how Fabric’s workloads can help you prepare your data for AI projects. Finally, we’ll show you how easy it is to connect OneLake to Azure AI Foundry so you can start building data-driven agents in seconds.

Unifying your data estate on OneLake

For teams tasked with building new AI solutions, finding and accessing the necessary data across a sea of disconnected data services can be challenging at the best of times. To lay the foundation for long-term success, organizations need a more unified, flexible data estate based on a lake-centric approach. The right data lake foundation can help you unify all of your multi-cloud sources and allow your data professionals to work from the same data—reducing data duplication, improving collaboration, and streamlining analysis.

OneLake is designed as the single point to discover and explore data for everyone in your entire organization. You can unify all of your multi-cloud and on-premise sources using zero ETL shortcuts and mirroring in OneLake without data duplication or movement. Alternatively, you can leverage the 180+ connectors in Fabric Data Factory to move your data in from any other source. OneLake is automatically wired into every Fabric workload and since data is stored in an open format, you can use data in OneLake for all your data projects, no matter the vendor or service. You can also save time and reduce data duplication by loading data into OneLake only once and using a single copy across every Fabric engine and even other engines like from Snowflake.

Once enabled in OneLake, you can use domains and the OneLake catalog to organize your data into a logical data mesh and empower everyone to easily explore, manage, and govern their data. Take a look at the OneLake catalog:

Preparing and curating your data for AI projects

For generative AI solutions to be as accurate as possible, they need to be built with clean data and in a semi-structured way. You’ll need an analytics platform that can help you prepare your data before building custom AI experiences. ​With your data in OneLake, you can use Fabric’s various workloads to make the data AI-ready. Fabric has tools for data integration and engineering, data warehousing, data science, real-time analytics, data modeling and visualization, and even has native, industry-specific and partner-created workloads to help you accelerate your data projects.

All Fabric workloads work together seamlessly out-of-the-box without the myriad of infrastructure and configuration settings you typically find in data platforms, so you can focus on getting results. Advanced security, governance, and continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) capabilities are woven into the platform with personalized experiences for admins and users alike. Copilot in Fabric and other AI capabilities are built into every layer of Fabric to help data professionals and business users automate routine tasks and get more done. Fabric also comes with category-leading performance, instant scalability, shared resilience, and built-in security, governance, and compliance so you can feel confident using Fabric for your mission-critical workloads.

Connecting OneLake data to AI products

Now that your data is AI-ready, you need to connect it to your AI platforms like Azure AI Foundry to build and scale data-driven GenAI apps. We’ve built native integration between OneLake and Azure AI Foundry to make this as seamless as possible. Azure AI Foundry can operate directly on OneLake, opening endless possibilities for AI and app developers, data engineers, data scientists, and business users to interact using natural language to uncover insights from their data.

Azure AI Foundry

Azure AI Foundry is a platform designed to empower your developers, AI engineers, and IT professionals to customize, host, run, and manage AI solutions with greater ease and confidence. Similar to Fabric, Azure AI Foundry’s unified approach simplifies the development and management process, helping all stakeholders focus on driving innovation and achieving strategic goals. It’s designed to help your developers build more technical, customized AI solutions.

The integration between Azure AI Foundry and OneLake is built on the same shortcut technology that allows you to virtualize data in OneLake from your cloud sources like Amazon S3 and Google Cloud without having to move and duplicate the data. You can immediately work with your structured and unstructured data from OneLake in Azure AI Foundry without creating copies and adding more data sprawl. OneLake also directly integrates with Azure AI Search, which can store, index, and retrieve data, including vector embeddings, from your data sources including OneLake. 

Finally, you can ground your Azure AI Agent’s responses with data from Fabric using Fabric data agents to unlock powerful data analysis capabilities. Data agents (formally known as AI skills) in Fabric are AI-powered assistants that can learn, adapt, and deliver insights, allowing users to interact with the data through chat. With out-of-the-box authorization, this integration simplifies access to enterprise data in Fabric while maintaining robust security, ensuring proper access control and enterprise-grade protection. Check out this full demo:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SBsErGew1yE?feature=oembedUsing data agents in Fabric as knowledge sources in Azure AI Foundry

Popular applications for data-driven agents

This seamless integration offers many opportunities for generative AI use cases across various industries, including:

• Enhancing data insights: Build agents that can help your business users explore and better understand critical data using natural language from structured, unstructured, and real-time data.
• Analyzing customer interactions: Build agents trained on your customer interaction data to enhance customer service, tailor support responses, and make data-driven decisions. These agents can detect language, summarize content, analyze sentiment, and convert insights into vector embeddings for future access in search queries.
• Customizing machine learning models: Tailor models to specific business needs, whether it’s predictive maintenance, fraud detection, or customer sentiment analysis. Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, and Microsoft Fabric empower developers and data scientists to create custom models that fit their business requirements, grounded on their enterprise data in OneLake.
• Department-specific agents: Build agents that automate budget and expenses, increase up-sell and conversion opportunities, and improve operational efficiency
• Industry-specific agents: Build data-driven agents to streamline operations and manage OEE in manufacturing, optimize logistics and interact with customers in retail, and reduce patient-practitioner contact time in healthcare.

Ready to learn more?

Unlock a realm of new possibilities for your organization in the era of AI with the integration of Microsoft Fabric and Azure AI. Explore the potential, innovate, and thrive in the new digital landscape.

 If you want to learn more about these tools, consider:

• Signing up for the Microsoft Fabric free trial.
• Visiting the Microsoft Fabric website.
• Visiting the Azure AI Foundry website.

The post Build data-driven agents with curated data from OneLake appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

Pre-Days: Workshops and Partner Day 

The week began with pre-conference workshops on March 29th and 30th, offering deep dives into the latest advancements across Microsoft Fabric. Topics included analytics, data governance, databases, and AI. These interactive sessions equipped attendees with practical skills and insights they could immediately apply, including preparation for their Microsoft Fabric certification exams.

The Partner Day welcomed over 500 attendees representing GSIs (Global System Integrators), SIs (System Integrators), and Software Development Company partners. The goal was to strengthen connections between Microsoft and partner teams, deepen business relationships, and celebrate our partner community. Rajiv Phoughat, Principal—Advisory Digital at KPMG, joined me on stage to share KPMG’s data estate transformation journey. Rajiv highlighted how Fabric has helped KPMG Digital drive greater operational efficiency and deeper insights across their global organization. Partners also had the chance to engage directly with Fabric product leaders during an Ask Me Anything session, where they posed top-of-mind questions. Leaders from Microsoft’s partner teams were also on hand to share guidance and deepen relationships. 

Monday keynote

Arun Ulagaratchagan, Corporate Vice President of Azure Data, kicked off the keynote at the T-Mobile Arena in front of a packed house, and shared his vision for an AI-powered data platform that brings together ingestion, analytics, databases, business intelligence, and real-time intelligence—all on a unified, open, and governed data lake built on Azure. 

This vision set the stage for Amir Netz, Technical Fellow and CTO of Microsoft Fabric, and the Fabric team to unveil a series of exciting updates across the Fabric platform and workloads. Highlights included enhancements to OneLake Security, the introduction of Data Agents in Microsoft Fabric, expanded Copilot and AI capabilities across all Fabric SKUs, a streamlined migration experience for customers moving from Azure Synapse to Fabric, expanded integration between Fabric and Snowflake, and more. 

Following Arun and Amir, I had a blast partnering with Marco Casalaina, VP of Azure AI and Futurist, to demonstrate how AI is driving real business transformation. Together, we showcased a series of language-based demos translating speech in real-time to multiple foreign languages and interacting with AI agents using speech, highlighting how customers can use Azure AI Foundry and Fabric to build AI agents that deliver transformative customer experiences. Finally, we were joined on stage by executives leading data and AI organizations including Philip Withey, Chief Architect, London Stock Exchange Group, Maureen Tan, Head of AI CoE, Global Units, NTT DATA, Inc. and John Maio, VP, Enterprise Data & Analytics, CSX, who shared insights on their data estate modernization journey and how they are now leveraging Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft AI Foundry to unify their data estates and accelerate AI projects. 

A packed Fabric agenda: Sessions, community connections, ask the Experts, and more 

The rest of Monday and all of Tuesday were packed with learning opportunities, with sessions led by MVPs, Microsoft engineering teams, and customers alike. Highlights included MVPs Reza Rad and Minni Walia’s session on Real-Time Intelligence for Power BI users, Microsoft product leaders Bogdan Crivat and Charles Webb discussing the future of Fabric Data Warehouse, and a great talk by Phil Witney and Rich Acosta on how LSEG and Prudential Group Insurance Management implemented Fabric. 

Of course, sessions weren’t the only way to learn. The Community Lounge was buzzing with 1:1 conversations, live group chats, and impromptu meetups with community celebrities like Patrick LeBlanc and Adam Saxton of Guy In a Cube fame. 

Attendees also explored the expo hall, connected with sponsors, visited the Ask the Experts booths to meet the Microsoft teams building Fabric, and stopped by the Microsoft booth for a unique hands-on experience. There, Fabric came to life on the Forza Motorsport track, where drivers competed for top times, bragging rights, and fun prizes. With 545 players and 1,065 races, the experience generated over 1.4 billion rows of data, which were ingested for instant visualizations and insights by Fabric Real-Time Intelligence and Power BI. Kudos to all our racers and winners—we hope you’re rocking your new Fabric shoes! 

The rest of the conference was packed with learning and fun. Highlights included the inaugural Data Viz World Championship, the much-anticipated return of Power Hour After Dark, an unforgettable attendee party by the pool, and numerous events hosted by our amazing partners and sponsors.

Wednesday keynote

In Wednesday’s keynote, Dipti Borkar, VP of Microsoft OneLake and Fabric ISVs, shared how Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are using Fabric to accelerate AI innovation and enhance customer experiences. The keynote unveiled the new Workload Hub—a centralized platform to explore and leverage various workloads—and featured a panel of ISVs showcasing real-world integrations and their impact on customers. The panel included Sudhir Hasbe, Chief Product Officer at Neo4j, Shadi Shahin, VP of Product Strategy at SAS Institute, and Rob Elkins, Director of Product Management at ESRI. Each shared insights on how their organizations are building on Fabric to drive transformative outcomes. 

Maithili Dandige, GM of Microsoft Purview, then set attendees up for their final day of sessions by spotlighting our latest advancements in data security and governance. Key announcements included new features for Copilot in Power BI, new data loss prevention capabilities, and expanded insider risk management tools—underscoring Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to innovation in data protection, security, and compliance. 

About those sneakers… 

To help celebrate the first anniversary of the GA of Microsoft Fabric, we created a small number of customized Microsoft Fabric sneakers as a token of thanks for the launch team. However, we also wanted to use the opportunity to say thank you to some of the supporters from the broader Fabric community across MVPs and the customer community. Without their tireless support and advocacy, Fabric and FabCon 2025 would not have been the success that it is. We’re thrilled at the reception that it’s received online and during the event. We will be sure to incorporate more ways to surprise and delight the community in the future.

Looking ahead with Fabric

I hope all FabCon attendees left feeling inspired, equipped with fresh insights, new connections, and a renewed sense of excitement for the future of Microsoft Fabric. We’re excited to see how the ideas and innovations shared will shape the future of data and AI. 

Next up is Microsoft Build, taking place in Seattle from May 19 to 22, 2025. As one of our biggest events of the year, it’s a great opportunity to explore the latest Fabric innovations and stay ahead of what’s next. Register today and be part of the momentum. 

If you missed the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference, don’t worry—there’s another chance to be part of the experience. Join us this September 15 to 18 in Vienna, Austria, for the European Fabric Community Conference. Reconnect with the community from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and enjoy a full week of sessions, insights, and networking. I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

Microsoft Fabric

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Explore additional resources for Microsoft Fabric

• If you do nothing else, download and reference the Fabric one-pager. 

• Sign up for the Fabric free trial. 

• View the updated Fabric Roadmap. 

• Visit the Fabric website. 

• Join the Fabric community. 

• Register for the Fabric Ask the Experts series and join us for our monthly Q and As. 

• Read other in-depth, technical blogs on the Microsoft Fabric Updates Blog. 

• See how the Microsoft IDEAS team is building on Fabric.

• Explore the Fabric technical documentation.

• Check out the newly launched Fabric Tech Talk Fridays (F²T²), which is the go-to show for Fabric MVPs, users, and fans. Join us for live demos, real use cases, and expert insights. Watch the latest episodes here. 

The post Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025 Highlights: Community growth and innovation appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

Microsoft Fabric is a unified data platform that continues to transform businesses worldwide, with more than 19,000 organizations and 74% of Fortune 500 companies leveraging Fabric. At FabCon, customers from around the world will share how they are pushing the boundaries of data at scale and unlocking new possibilities for business innovation. 

The London Stock Exchange (LSEG), for example, is leveraging Fabric to unify their data estates and efficiently process their data:

“Microsoft Fabric has been pivotal in LSEG’s data platform modernization journey. With Fabric Spark as the core engine powering our customer facing enterprise data platform, LSEG manages large volumes of time critical financial markets data that require complex data quality and transformation rules, executed at scale and with consistent service levels. Combining this with the broader Fabric eco-system has opened up new and exciting customer experiences and AI-powered opportunities.” 

 —Phil Withey, Head of Architecture, LSEG Microsoft Partners

Similarly, International Workplace Group (IWG) is revolutionizing its approach to data integration: 

“Microsoft Fabric was a game changer because of its ability to create shortcuts without physically moving data from one place to another. Before, if I had to incorporate three sources, I had to create pipelines to bring in the data. That pipeline had a cost. The data movement had a cost. With Fabric, it’s two clicks and that’s it.” 

—José Viegas, Senior Data Architect, IWG 

We’re always listening and learning to further enable customer successes like these by delivering the latest innovations across the data estate. See how customers around the world are using Fabric to transform their teams and industries.

New capabilities coming to Microsoft Fabric 

Today, we’re enhancing the Fabric experience by unlocking new possibilities through key innovations designed to help strengthen security and harness the power of AI to streamline data workstreams like never before:

Introducing OneLake security—an industry breakthrough in data protection 

Managing granular data security across multiple applications and engines is complex, often resulting in excessive restrictions or accidental data exposures. That’s why we’re introducing OneLake security—an industry breakthrough in data protection. OneLake is Fabric’s unified data lake, which seamlessly connects your entire multi-cloud and on-premises data estate. All your teams get a single place to discover, explore, and manage their data—even within apps like Microsoft Teams and Excel. 

Now with OneLake security, you can define access permissions once, and Fabric will enforce it consistently across all engines. Data owners can create security roles, refine permissions, and control access at the row and column levels to securely share data. For example, you can grant access to only certain folders, tables, or even rows in a lakehouse—restricting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) while keeping other data available. This security propagates automatically, so whether you query the data in SQL or visualize it in a Power BI report, you can only see what has been authorized. Check out the following demo to see OneLake security in action:

We are thrilled to share that OneLake security will be available in preview within a few months. In the meantime, if you are interested in trying OneLake security on your workspaces and providing feedback, please visit this early access sign-up page.

• Read more in the OneLake security blog. 

Empowering agentic AI by integrating Fabric data agents with Azure AI Foundry

Data plays a critical role in agentic AI, enabling AI agents to operate independently, make informed decisions, and take meaningful actions. That’s why we are expanding capabilities and deepening integrations between our data and AI platforms. 

Data agents (formerly known as AI skills) in Microsoft Fabric are AI-powered assistants that can learn, adapt, and deliver insights instantly, helping teams make better data-driven decisions. Fabric data agents not only retrieve data from OneLake, but they can reason over and understand the data—what it means, how it’s structured, and when it’s relevant. 

Starting today, organizations can use Azure AI Foundry to connect customized, conversational agents, created in Fabric. AI developers can now use Azure AI Agent Service to securely ground AI agent outputs with enterprise knowledge in Fabric data agents, so that responses are accurate, relevant, and contextually aware. By combining Fabric’s sophisticated data analysis over enterprise data with Azure AI Foundry’s cutting-edge GenAI technology, businesses can create custom conversational AI agents leveraging domain expertise. 

“Fabric data agents are a powerful and value-adding tool in data environments. Acting as a conversational capability layer, we can use data agents to ‘talk’ to our data, understand it, and derive different insights in support of our daily decision making.”

—Maureen Tan, Head of AI Center of Expertise, NTT DATA

• Learn how NTT DATA is simplifying their AI deployment.
• Read more about Fabric data agent integration in the Fabric blog and Azure AI blog.
• Check out the following demo to learn more:

Copilot and AI capabilities in Fabric will be available for all SKUs

We are excited to announce that Copilot and AI capabilities will be enabled for all paid SKUs in Fabric, making these tools accessible to everyone within the coming weeks. This expansion is driven by your feedback about the impact Copilot in Microsoft Fabric has had on your productivity, and how broadening access to Copilot would benefit more teams. With this latest update, customers on F2 and above can use Copilot and AI capabilities, such as Fabric data agents, to streamline workflows, generate insights, and drive impactful decisions.

• Read more about these changes in the Copilot for Fabric SKU update blog. 

Seamlessly migrate your data to Fabric 

We are excited to announce the preview of a migration experience natively built into the Fabric UI, enabling Azure Synapse Analytics (data warehouse) customers to transition seamlessly to Microsoft Fabric. With a built-in, intelligent assessment, guided support, and AI-powered assistance, this experience simplifies migration of code and data while helping customers unlock Fabric’s unified data foundation, AI-driven analytics, and enhanced performance—without the complexity of traditional migrations. 

• Read more in the Migration Assistant for Fabric Data Warehouse blog. 

Microsoft Fabric Community Conference

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Additional Fabric innovations

In addition to the above, we are introducing a series of updates across the Microsoft Fabric platform and its workloads. These advancements will further progress our commitments to our four core Fabric pillars: 

Fabric is a complete AI-powered data platform

Fabric is a unified, AI-powered data platform that fosters seamless collaboration across your organization. Today, we’re sharing new enhancements and capabilities that will further strengthen the Fabric platform and workloads, which will unlock even more possibilities for your data initiatives. 

Platform enhancements: 

• The preview of Command Line Interface (CLI) in Fabric introduces a new terminal that allows users and admins to execute commands across Fabric using interactive prompts or scripts, enabling a seamless, code-first experience without relying on clicks. 

• The preview of new CI/CD enhancements expands support across the Fabric platform, including variable libraries for workspaces, Service Principal support for GitHub, and Deployment Pipelines Fabric APIs Phase II. 

• The preview of User Data Functions introduces a way for developers to implement and reuse custom business logic in Fabric data science and data engineering workflows, streamlining development and improving efficiency. 

• The general availability of the Terraform provider for Fabric, to help customers ensure deployments and management tasks are executed accurately and consistently. 

• The general availability of Tags, which allows users to optimally describe items they own, and help enhance organization and discoverability of data in Fabric. 

Data integration enhancements: 

• Several enhancements to Dataflow Gen2 including the general availability of Incremental Refresh, and the preview to save a Dataflow Gen1 as a Dataflow Gen2. 

• Database Mirroring has been enhanced with key new enterprise capabilities, including a new source (Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server) and support for connecting to data sources over the On-premises and Virtual Network Data Gateways. 

• The general availability of Apache Airflow job empowers customers to run their Apache Airflow DAGs in Microsoft Fabric, with a serverless Apache Airflow runtime. 

• The general availability of the Copy job introduces a new simplified experience for customers who need to move data between different data sources and destinations. It also introduces support for batch and incremental data movement. 

• The preview of key orchestration enhancements is now available, enabling the creation of metadata-driven pipelines that orchestrate Dataflow Gen2 (CI/CD) parameterized invocation from Data Pipelines 

• Read more about all the Data Factory enhancements in the What’s new with Fabric Data Factory.

Real-time intelligence enhancements:

• The general availability of Azure and Fabric Events transforms Fabric into an event-driven platform. Users can leverage the Real-Time hub to discover and subscribe to Azure and Fabric Events across OneLake, Fabric jobs, Workspaces, and Azure Blob Storage.

• The preview of new eventstream connectors which allows users to bring in data from additional non-Microsoft sources, including Weather, Solace PubSub+, ADX Table Streamify, MQTT v5, Event Grid Namespaces, and Confluent with Schema Registry. 

• Read more about our Real Time Intelligence enhancements in the Real Time Updates blog.

Data Engineering and Data Science enhancements: 

• The preview of Autoscale Billing for Spark helps optimize Spark job costs by offloading Data Engineering workloads to a serverless billing mode. Capacity admins can set a max capacity units (CUs) limit in capacity settings, ensuring Spark jobs use dedicated CUs instead of shared Fabric Capacity. 

• A new Copilot experience in Fabric notebooks that improves productivity with in-cell interactions, better code generation, and seamless Fabric integration. 

• The preview of AI functions provides powerful capabilities to apply LLM-powered transformations, such as summarization, classification, and text generation to your OneLake data—all with a single line of code.

Partner/ISV integrations 

• At Ignite, we announced the general availability of the Workload Development Toolkit (WDK) and introduced ISV workloads that bring new capabilities and value to our joint customers. We are excited to now announce the general availability of Fabric workloads from Osmos, Profisee, and PowerBI.tips, along with public previews of new workloads from Celonis, CluedIn, Neo4j, Lumel, Statsig, and Striim in the Fabric Workload Hub. In addition, CluedIn also announced a public preview of its integration with Open Mirroring in Fabric.

Fabric is open with an AI-ready data lake 

In addition to OneLake Security, we are also making enhancements to OneLake, including: 

• A modern get-data experience with OneLake catalog integration in Microsoft Excel (in Office Insiders Fast) enables users to explore the OneLake catalog directly from Excel, expanding accessibility beyond the existing Microsoft Teams integration. 

• Coming soon, we are releasing the general availability of on-premises data gateways support for Amazon S3, S3-compatible sources, and Google Cloud Platform allows users to create shortcuts to on-premises data sources hosted behind a firewall or within a Virtual Private Cloud. 

• The enhancements for cross-tenant sharing, including the ability to share multiple tables at once, Lakehouse schemas, as well as tables from Fabric SQL databases, KQL databases, and OneLake shortcuts (coming soon). This shared data can now be accessed via SQL analytics endpoints and semantic models. 

• An updated version of the Fabric Link to Dataverse preview enables even faster and more secure data virtualization from Dataverse, the data platform for the Power Platform and Dynamics 365, thanks to back-end improvements. We are also announcing a new Mirrored Dataverse option in Fabric. Learn more about both announcements. 

• Multi-tenant organization (MTO) support is now generally available.

• CI/CD support for OneLake shortcuts is now in preview.

Fabric empowers every business user with AI capabilities

Fabric empowers business users to quickly uncover key insights in a Power BI report by simply asking Copilot. With AI-enhanced Q&A and intuitive visuals seamlessly embedded in Microsoft 365 apps, everyone can better understand and act on their data with ease. To further empower this mission, we’re announcing that: 

• The preview of Direct Lake semantic models in Power BI desktop, which allows users to build Power BI semantic models for lightning-fast reports that query data directly from OneLake without scheduling refreshes and without data duplication. This feature will also enable users to add in tables from multiple Fabric artifacts in the same Direct Lake semantic model for ultimate reusability of OneLake data.

• The preview of Datapoint annotations in Power BI add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, which allows users to add descriptive text to a specific data point within a visualization.

Fabric provides a mission-critical foundation 

Our final promise is that you can confidently deploy and manage Microsoft Fabric with category-leading performance, instant scalability, shared resilience, and built-in security, governance, and compliance. To further that mission, we’re excited to introduce several enhancements to our mission-critical promise, including: 

Mission-critical foundation enhancement with Microsoft Purview:

• Coming soon, the preview of Microsoft Purview for Copilot in Power BI. The integration will enable discovery of data risks such as sensitive data in user prompts and responses, protect sensitive data with Insider Risk Management to identify and investigate risky AI usage, and govern AI usage with audit, eDiscovery, retention policies, and non-compliant usage detection.  

• Coming soon, we are expanding Purview Data Loss Prevention policies Fabric coverage beyond lakehouses and semantic models, to now also include Fabric KQL databases and mirrored databases. This will allow security admins to detect sensitive data uploads, such as SSNs, and trigger automated actions in more sources. 

• The preview of Data Observability within the Unified Catalog to investigate the relationship between data products and any assets (including Fabric assets) associated with them to identify the root cause of quality issues. 

• Read more in the secure and govern your data with Microsoft Purview blog.

Getting started with Microsoft Fabric 

New customers can try out everything Fabric has to offer by signing up for a free 60-day trial—no credit card information required. Learn how to start your free trial. 

If you’re considering purchasing Fabric and need help choosing a SKU, we’re excited to share that a new Fabric SKU Estimator will soon be available in public preview. Stay tuned. 

Watch the action at the Fabric Conference

To see these announcements in action, register and secure your spot today through Wednesday April 2, 2025. With over 200 expert-led sessions, you can join thousands of attendees who are diving deep into Microsoft Fabric, exploring innovations in AI, databases, analytics, business intelligence, and more.  

Explore additional resources for Microsoft Fabric 

To learn more about Fabric:  

• Sign up for the Fabric free trial.
• View the updated Fabric Roadmap.
• Visit the Fabric website.
• Join the Fabric community.
• Read other in-depth, technical blogs on the Microsoft Fabric Updates Blog.
• See how the Microsoft IDEAS team is building on Fabric. 
• Explore the Fabric technical documentation. 
• Check out the newly launched Fabric Tech Talk Fridays (F²T²), which is the go-to show for Fabric MVPs, users, and fans. Join us for live demos, real use cases, and expert insights. Watch the latest episodes here. 

Read additional blogs by industry-leading partners: 

• The Future of Microsoft Fabric and Enterprise Innovation by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PWC). 
• How to navigate the complexity of data supply chains by Ernst & Young Global Limited (EY). 
• How Microsoft is making data platforms smarter by Hitachi Solutions. 
• Healthcare Innovation with Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft Fabric meets Agentic AI by Sonata Software. 
• Unlocking business potential with Microsoft Fabric by Eide Bailly. 
• A comprehensive solution for Healthcare on Microsoft Fabric by Mandelbulb Technologies. 
• Microsoft Fabric raises the bar again by Kanerika Software. 
• Implementing Data Agents in Microsoft Fabric and integrating predictive analytics into Power BI and Migrating from On-Prem SQL to Microsoft Fabric by Baker Tilly US, LLP. 
• Fabric Copilot is now available for all SKUs! by RSM US, LLP. 
• Smart Manufacturing: Unlocking Real-Time Intelligence with Azure IoT Operations and Microsoft Fabric by b.telligent. 

The post FabCon 2025: Fueling tomorrow’s AI with new agentic capabilities and security innovations in Fabric  appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

As you transition, we want to help ensure you keep access to all your data and can continue your existing work. That’s why we previously announced that you have 90 days to access your data in Power BI while you transition. Based on your feedback, we are also providing free Power BI Premium capacity for the first 30 days after the end of your previous subscription. The amount of free capacity will match the amount offered by your previously purchased P-SKU. This should reduce the need to pay for two capacities at the same time.  

How does the migration work?

As you transition to Fabric, you will need to migrate from your existing Power BI Premium capacity to a new Fabric capacity. To migrate, all you need to do is reassign your workspaces to the new Fabric capacity. We’ve even created an automated migration tool to help accelerate the process, which is especially useful if you have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of workspaces. This automated migration tool can help you programmatically migrate using Fabric REST APIs. Learn more about the manual and automated ways to migrate your workspaces here.  

What will happen at the end of my grace period?

After 30 days of free capacity, your operations will begin to be throttled and your jobs could be delayed or even rejected. Learn more about Fabric’s throttling policy. However, you will still have access to your Power BI workspaces and data if you need additional time to migrate to a F-SKU.  

After 90 days, you may lose access to your Power BI data. If you need more time, please contact your Microsoft account representative or Microsoft partner as soon as possible.  

Once you’ve migrated your data, you should delete your Power BI Premium capacities that are no longer in use. If these capacities are not deleted, operations will be slowed after 30 days, and the capacities will be frozen after 90 days and eventually deleted.  

Next steps toward transitioning to Microsoft Fabric

As you approach the end of your current agreement, create a plan to purchase Fabric and migrate your workspaces. You can view your Fabric capacity pricing options on the Fabric pricing page and get detailed instructions on how to purchase Fabric on the Buy a Fabric subscription documentation on Microsoft Learn. Please contact your Microsoft sales representative or partner to learn when you need to switch to a Fabric SKU and how we can support your smooth transition. 

Frequently asked questions

When do I have to transition to Microsoft Fabric?

Depending on your existing agreement, the retirement will impact you differently: 

• New customers can no longer purchase Power BI Premium per capacity. 
• Existing customers without an Enterprise Agreement (EA) will need to replace their Power BI Premium capacity subscription purchase with the purchase of Fabric capacity at the end of their agreement. 
• Customers with an existing EA agreement can continue to renew their Power BI Premium capacity purchase annually until the end of their EA agreement. However, at the end of their agreement, they will have to transition to Fabric capacity once the agreement has ended to continue using Microsoft Fabric. 
• Customers on a sovereign cloud will not be impacted by this retirement as they do not currently have access to Microsoft Fabric. We will provide additional information as soon as it’s available. 

What are the benefits of Fabric products?

Customers that migrate their purchase to Fabric capacity will enjoy a range of additional benefits. Fabric capacity is eligible for Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) which means Fabric customers can apply their Fabric spend against their MACC commitment. Additionally, Fabric capacity customers will get access to features only available in Microsoft Azure, like trusted workspace access and Managed Private Endpoints, which are critical components for supporting secure and private data access. These features are native to Azure and not available to Power BI Premium capacity customers. See all Microsoft Fabric products available in your Azure region on the Microsoft Fabric pricing page.    

Can I access Microsoft Power BI Embedded and Power BI Report Server from Fabric?

For Power BI Embedded, Fabric capacity is compatible with Power BI Embedded and can be used to run all of your embedded activities. Read the blog “Power BI Embedded with Microsoft Fabric” for more information. 

Power BI Report Server is now included with Fabric 64 SKU Reserved Instance purchases. You can get the Power BI Report Server key in the “Fabric Capacity” tab under “Capacity Settings” in the admin portal. It’s also available with Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise core licenses with software assurance. Learn more about ways to get the Power BI report server key here. 

Will I still need a Power BI Pro license to publish Power BI content?

Yes, this requirement will extend to Fabric capacity. Power BI report publishers and consumers still need a Power BI Pro license. However, for Fabric 64 SKU—a Power BI Premium P1 equivalent—or larger capacities, report viewers can view content with only a Fabric free license if the content is hosted in the capacity. Additionally, for non-Power BI activities, no Power BI Pro license is required.

The post Grace period for transitioning from Power BI Premium to Microsoft Fabric appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

From March 31 to April 2 at the MGM Grand, this year’s conference is set to be the biggest Fabric learning experience yet. You’ll have your choice of more than 200 sessions—a 40% increase from last year—for deeper insights into the latest innovations in data, governance, analytics, and AI. Beyond the sessions, hands-on workshops will be available on March 29, 30, and April 3, providing immersive, practical learning experiences. Expect keynotes from Microsoft and industry leaders, a partner expo featuring the latest innovations, and dedicated networking spaces like Ask the Experts and the Community Lounge for networking.

With so much great content, choosing the right sessions can feel overwhelming. To help you make the most of your time, we’ve curated a list of must-attend sessions. After the keynote, we recommend kicking off your learning with the Corenotes sessions, led by the experts who build these products. These sessions provide key insights into the latest developments, roadmaps, and the sessions you won’t want to miss throughout FabCon. From there, you can explore our recommended sessions below to gain the strategies and insights you need to unlock the full potential of Microsoft Fabric in your organization.

Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025

Over 200 sessions of deeper insights into the latest innovations in data, governance, analytics, and AI.

Register here

Fabric corenote sessions

• The Future Unfolded: Microsoft Fabric for AI and Data Science
• Fabric Data Engineering Roadmap 
• Unify your data estate with OneLake, the OneDrive for data 
• The Roadmap for SQL database in Fabric 
• Fabric Data Factory: What’s New and Roadmap 
• Power BI Roadmap: Strategy, Vision, and Demos 
• The future of Fabric Data Warehouse: what’s new, what’s coming 
• Revolutionize your business with timely insights and actions using Real-time Intelligence 

Fabric fundamentals 

You Could Have Invented Fabric: a Beginner’s Guide with Eugene Meidinger—Microsoft Fabric can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re new to big data concepts. In this session, Eugene will break down how Fabric brings multiple technologies under one umbrella and explore how, with enough effort, you can build the Delta Lake foundation yourself. You’ll come away understanding how Fabric resolves common pain points and why making the switch could be a game changer. 

Power BI 

Experience the Power of SQL and Power BI with Microsoft Fabric with Bob Ward and Patrick LeBlanc—Microsoft Fabric is redefining data analytics, but Microsoft SQL remains a powerful player in the mix. This session explores how to integrate and replicate SQL data into Fabric in near real-time, leveraging both platforms to drive business success. Plus, with SQL vs. Guy in a Cube, you never know what surprise guests might show up! 

The latest in AI

Unlocking Data-Driven Insights with AI Skills in Microsoft Fabric and Beyond with Amir Jafari and Misha Desai—Join this session to learn how to create and customize AI-powered Data Experts in Microsoft Fabric’s AI-powered data platform, leveraging generative AI for deeper insights. Discover how to tailor AI skills to your data, integrate them across the Microsoft ecosystem, and transform your data into a strategic asset. 

Changing the way we interact with data in the era of AI with Marc Lelijveld—Join Marc for a demo-rich session exploring how Microsoft Fabric enables dynamic conversations with your data, moving beyond static reports. See Fabric AI Skills, Microsoft Copilot, and Power Virtual Agents in action as Marc shows you how to unlock insights from warehouses, semantic models, and more. 

Databases

Welcome to the Party: Microsoft Fabric for DBAs with Rob Carrol—Microsoft Fabric is bringing DBAs to the main stage! With Fabric Databases, you can now unify transactional and analytical workloads on a single, powerful platform. Join this session to explore seamless SQL Server integration, replicating delta tables in OneLake, and how to leverage your DBA skills to manage and optimize Fabric Databases like a pro. 

A Deep Dive into SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric with Yo-Lei Chen and David Levy—Discover how SQL database is transforming Fabric into a unified data platform, seamlessly connecting transactional workloads with data lakes and business intelligence tools. In this session, Yo-Lei and David will dive into SQL database’s enterprise-scale capabilities, autonomous management, and best practices for integration—helping you build a powerful, efficient data stack within Fabric. 

Data Factory and Data Warehouse

Transforming Data Warehouse Migrations with an AI Powered Assistant with Ancy Philip and Omeed Chandra—Join us to explore the migration assistant for Fabric Data warehouse, an AI powered tool designed to revolutionize data warehouse migrations. This session will provide an in-depth exploration of the current capabilities, upcoming features, and the innovative processes that drive our solution. Learn about the challenges we faced, the breakthroughs we achieved, and the future vision we are working towards. Whether you are a SQL Developer or Data Engineer, this presentation will offer valuable insights into the next generation of data migration technology. 

Getting Started with Open Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric with Maraki Ketema and Anudeep Sharma—Join the team for a deep dive into Open Mirroring, a key tool for data replication. Learn about its landing zone for logs, data loading, incremental updates, schema management, and future enhancements. Ideal for data engineers and IT professionals, this session provides a comprehensive guide to efficient data handling with Open Mirror. 

Security and governance 

Securing Your Fabric Workloads—Best Practices from the Fabric Security Team with Elena Scilletta and Paddy Osborne—Learn best practices for securing your Fabric workloads, from leveraging built-in security features to meeting your business needs. This session will cover strategies for access control, data protection, and secure integration with Microsoft and third-party resources, ensuring a robust security posture for your Fabric environment. 

Manage, Govern, and Secure Your Fabric Data with OneLake Catalog and Microsoft Purview with Anton Fritz and Yaron Canari—Managing data security and governance across a fragmented data estate is challenging and costly. Join this session to learn how Fabric’s mission-critical foundation supports streamlined governance with the OneLake catalog and enhances security through built-in Fabric features alongside the advanced capabilities of Microsoft Purview. 

Microsoft OneLake

Unify Your Data Estate with OneLake, the OneDrive for Data with Adi Regev and Josh Caplan—See how OneLake is revolutionizing data management by eliminating silos and unifying storage across organizations and clouds. With the OneLake Catalog, easily explore, reuse, and manage data, while business domains empower teams to work independently in a scalable data mesh—without the complexity of separate lakes. 

Harnessing the Power of OneLake and AI Foundry with Miquella de Boer—Explore the power of Microsoft Fabric’s open and AI-ready data lake in this deep-dive session on seamless data integration and AI-driven innovation. Learn how OneLake supports diverse data formats like Delta and Iceberg, while AI Foundry enhances data science and engineering workloads—unlocking new efficiencies and real-world use cases.

Additional can’t-miss sessions 

Building Fabric-native Experiences and Workloads to Power AI Transformation with Asif Kazi—Discover how industry-leading ISVs and partners are integrating into Microsoft Fabric to build powerful analytics and app solutions. This session explores Fabric’s Workload Development Kit, monetization opportunities via Azure Marketplace, and real-world examples of partner workloads, showcasing how to leverage the Fabric ecosystem for maximum impact. 

Revolutionize Your Business with Timely Insights and Actions Using Real-Time Intelligence with Tessa Kloster and Yitzhak Kesselman—Real-Time Intelligence empowers businesses with instant data insights and analytics. This session explores its evolution, key features, and impact on decision-making, along with customer success stories that showcase how it can transform your data strategy and drive growth. 

Trailblazers: Women Leading the Future of Data and AI with Priya Sathy, Ope Aladekomo, Erin Stellato and Swetha Mannepalli—Join a panel of inspiring women leaders driving change in data and AI. They’ll share their journeys, challenges, and insights on innovation, leadership, and the power of diversity in shaping the industry’s future. 

Register today

As with last year, Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025 is an in-person-only event, making it the ultimate opportunity to connect with experts and peers face-to-face. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn about Fabric and see firsthand how Microsoft can help your organization prepare for the era of AI. Register today. 

Sign up now to secure your spot and save $150 on your registration with the code MSCUST. Offer valid until the conference begins on March 31. 

The post Don’t miss these Microsoft Fabric Community Conference 2025 sessions appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

Microsoft Fabric has embraced this mission by integrating multiple products and services needed for an end-to-end analytics and AI solution, redefining existing processes to make them simpler and more intuitive. It has significantly simplified how one interfaces with such a comprehensive solution by creating a turnkey software-as-a-service experience that is easy to use with a much simpler and singular capacity usage model.

At Ignite 2024, Fabric took another bold step forward by adding operational databases to the Fabric portfolio with SQL database in Fabric. Adding operational data alongside Fabric’s analytical OLAP (Online Analytics Processing) data and real-time streaming data (RTI) opens a host of new scenarios for AI agentic applications. It also provides our customers with a unified data estate where consistent security and governance policies can be applied.

SQL database in Fabric leverages the proven mission-critical SQL Server database engine. It applies the core principles of Fabric to make deploying and managing an operational database simpler, more autonomous, secure by default, and optimized for AI. For example, deploying and configuring a database only requires a name, and the database is ready in seconds. It is secure by default with encryption at rest and in transit enabled. Networking security is also enabled via Private Link, and high availability and zone redundancy are automatically configured. 

SQL in Fabric includes native AI capabilities like support for vector and RAG (Retrieval-augmented Generation). You can also make calls directly to Azure AI services from the database and connect your database to Azure AI Foundry, VSCode, and GitHub for an integrated developer experience. In addition, you will find Microsoft Copilot integrated into every workload in Fabric including SQL in Fabric, simplifying administrative and management tasks for the databases. 

Beyond just the OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) database, Fabric introduces new agentic AI application scenarios by providing access to real-time streaming data from IoT sensors, alongside your system of record with SQL in Fabric and other data sets securely stored in OneLake. 

OneLake is at the heart of enabling a unified data estate. OneLake is built on top of Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2 and can support any type of file, structured or unstructured. All Fabric data items like data warehouses and lakehouses store their data automatically in OneLake in Delta Parquet format. With the addition of SQL database in Fabric you now also have access to your mirrored SQL data in OneLake and mirroring data in Fabric is free. 

Fabric also provides a rich ecosystem to support agentic AI applications using your operational data. Changes from your data can be seamlessly sent to Azure OpenAI for business recommendations using Fabric Real-time Intelligence Eventstream, Spark, OneLake, and Power BI. 

This unification of data is incredibly powerful, enabling dynamic improvements to customer prompt responses and proactive, personalized offers. From a security standpoint, Fabric can enable consistent data protection from when the data is born to business insights via PowerBI. The same goes for data governance. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the number of new scenarios that Fabric can enable by creating a unified data estate. SQL database in Fabric is just the first Azure Database to be added to Fabric, with more Azure Databases to follow, so stay tuned.

Get started today

SQL database in Fabric is simple, autonomous, secure, and optimized for AI. We highly encourage you to try it today and see how you can build new AI apps faster and easier than ever! 

Learning with Fabric

We have multiple resources to help you and your teams swiftly ramp up on SQL database in Fabric: 

• Explore the documentation and build with our end-to-end tutorials.

• Skill up with the new Fabric Databases learn modules.

• Watch new Data Exposed episodes.

• Watch the new Microsoft Mechanics episode.

• Get the latest product news here on the Fabric updates blog.

• Check out an AI chatbot application example built on SQL database in Fabric. 

Fabric Community Conference Vegas: A must-attend event for database professionals! Be sure to take advantage of the discount code MSCUST for $150 off the registration price. 

FabCon Vegas is the perfect opportunity to connect with experts and data leaders to build your skills with Fabric Databases and Azure Databases and see how your peers are implementing their solutions. 

• Microsoft Fabric Community Conference March 31^st – April 2^nd, in Vegas! Workshops will also be available on March 29th, 30th, and April 3rd, making this the most comprehensive Microsoft Fabric learning experience to date.

• SQL pros can take advantage of a dedicated track for SQL in Fabric Databases and Azure Databases. 

• Connect with product specialists for 1:1 support in the Ask the Experts area. 

• You’ll get endless opportunities all week to engage with the Fabric and data communities through sessions, thoughtful discussions, attendee mixers, and interactive activations. 

• In touch with your Microsoft account team? Ask them if they have any special discounts to share.

Database experts at FabCon

• CVP of Azure Databases: Shireesh Thota, speaking at the event¹.

• Sessions from the Microsoft Databases Product team: Rie Merritt, Bob Ward, Mazuma Zahid, Erin Stellato, Davide Mauri, and more.

• Sessions from Database Community MVPs: Joey D’Antoni, John Morehouse, Monica Rathbun, Denny Cherry, Karen Lopez, Anthony Nocentino, Erwin de Kreuk, Warwick Rudd, Kelly Broekstra, Heidi Hasting, and Hamish Watson.

Microsoft Fabric

Unify your teams and data to accelerate AI innovation with a complete data platform

Try today

¹speakers subject to change

The post The art of simplifying the complex: Microsoft Fabric’s superpower appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

In this blog, we’ll lay out the latest and greatest of our curated Fabric skilling paths on Microsoft Learn to help your team drive transformative business outcomes. We’re also announcing a new certification exam available with a 50% discount! And of course, we’ll dive into our exciting upcoming in-person event, FabCon, where we’ll have even more surprises in store, plus a chance for you to connect with industry experts and the larger data-analysis community. Let’s get started!

Get certified as a Fabric Data Engineer

Learning Microsoft Fabric equips aspiring engineers with skills to streamline workflows, handle large-scale data processing, and integrate advanced AI tools. As a Fabric Data Engineer, you’ll have the chance to design and manage cutting-edge data solutions that move AI-powered insights. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the general availability of our new certification for Fabric Data Engineers. 

By earning your Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate certification, you’ll be equipped with an industry-recognized credential to set you apart in the growing field of data and AI. But you don’t have to do it alone. We’ve convened two live and on-demand series of expert-led walkthroughs to help you either get started with Fabric or build on your existing skills. Designed with Fabric Data Engineers in mind, these Microsoft Fabric Learn Together sessions (available in four time zones and three languages) are intended to give you the knowledge and confidence to ace your certification exam and take your data engineering career to the next level.

Want to explore the ins and outs of Fabric on your own time? We also have an official plan on Microsoft Learn featuring everything you’ll need to learn to pass the DP-700 Fabric Data Engineer Associate certification exam, including: 

• Describe the core features and capabilities of lakehouses in Microsoft Fabric.

• Use Apache Spark DataFrames to analyze and transform data.

• Use Real-Time Intelligence to ingest, query, and process streams of data.

• And much more! 

There’s more: For a limited time, you can get 50% off the cost of the DP-700 Fabric Data Engineer Associate certification exam. To be eligible, either attend one of the Learn Together sessions, complete the Plan on Microsoft Learn, or have previously passed the DP-203 exam. You have until March 31, 2025, to request the discount voucher, so get started fast-tracking your data engineering career today!

Join a community of Fabric users and experts at FabCon Las Vegas 

No matter your role or skill level, you can connect with other Fabric users and experts at the Fabric Community Conference from March 31-April 2, 2025, in Las Vegas. Join us at the MGM Grand for the ultimate Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, SQL, and AI event featuring over 200 sessions with speakers covering exciting new Fabric features and skilling opportunities. 

Connect one-on-one with community and product experts, including a dedicated partner pre-day, all-day Ask-the-Experts hours, a bustling expo hall, and plenty of after-hours social events. Workshops will also be available on March 29th, 30th, and April 3rd, making this the most comprehensive Microsoft Fabric learning experience to date. 

Don’t miss out! Register today to grab the early bird discount and use code MSCUST for $150 off registration. 

Build AI apps faster with SQL databases in Fabric 

Fabric’s capabilities and versatility are always expanding. We recently introduced a public preview of SQL databases to make building AI apps faster and easier than ever. SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric provides a unified, autonomous, and AI-optimized platform that accelerates app development by up to 71%, empowering businesses to innovate faster and gain a competitive edge in the AI era. 

To enhance your skills in working with SQL databases in Fabric, we’ve designed a new learning path called Implement operational databases in Microsoft Fabric. This course will guide you through the process of creating and managing SQL databases within the Fabric environment. You’ll also learn how to provision an SQL database, configure security settings, and perform essential database operations.

The course covers important topics such as data modeling, query optimization, and performance tuning specific to Fabric’s SQL capabilities. By completing this learning path, you’ll gain hands-on experience with Fabric’s SQL features and be better equipped to design and implement efficient database solutions.

You can also watch on-demand sessions of a recent SQL Database in Fabric Learn Together series to see how to build reliable, highly scalable applications where cloud authentication and encryption are secured by default. 

Unlock AI-ready insights and transform your data 

There’s always more to discover on Microsoft Learn, including a plan to help you harness AI and unify your intelligent data and analytics on the Fabric platform. With the Make your data AI-ready with Microsoft Fabric plan on Microsoft Learn, you’ll find out how to implement large-scale data engineering, build a lakehouse, and explore warehouse solutions.

This free, curated, and self-paced plan guides you through key learning milestones:

• Ingesting data through shortcuts, mirroring, pipelines, and dataflows. 

• Transforming data using dataflows, procedures, and notebooks. 

• Storing processed data in the lakehouse and data warehouse for easy retrieval. 

• Exposing data by creating reusable semantic models in Power BI, making transformed data accessible for analysis. 

Kick off your data and AI journey at Microsoft Learn 

If you’re looking to expand your Microsoft Fabric expertise and accelerate your professional development, we have everything you need:

• Get started on the path to becoming a Fabric Data Engineer Associate with our official plan on Microsoft Learn: Get Certified! Become a Fabric Data Engineer.

• Attend one of the Microsoft Fabric Learn Together sessions.

• Request a 50% discount voucher for the DP-700 Fabric Data Engineer Associate certification exam.

• Connect with Fabric experts at the Fabric Community Conference from March 31-April 2, 2025, in Las Vegas.

• Enhance your skills in working with SQL databases in Fabric with the Implement operational databases in Microsoft Fabric learning path.

• Harness AI to unify your data and analytics with the official plan on Microsoft Learn: Make your data AI-ready with Microsoft Fabric.

Fabric Community Conference

Bigger and better than ever

Sign up today

The post Power your AI transformation with Microsoft Fabric skilling plans and a certification discount appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

Microsoft Fabric

Bring your data together and empower everyone with valuable insights.

Get started with Fabric

Unlock the value of your data with Fabric

Fabric gives your teams the AI-powered tools they need for innovative data-informed decision-making and reporting projects. Fabric has many key features that help you get the most value from your organizational data.

With Fabric, you can:

• Govern and protect seamlessly
• Bring your institution’s data together
• Empower everyone with access to valuable insights
• Fuel your AI innovation

Take a Fabric training course

Fabric not only enables innovation but also saves money. A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study commissioned by Microsoft in 2024 highlights the cost savings and financial benefits of Fabric:

• 379% return on investment
• Payback in less than 6 months
• 25% increase in data engineering productivity
• 90% reduction in data engineering time related to searching, integrating, and debugging

Learn how Fabric can provide additional data insights and contribute to cost savings.

Govern and protect your data

The effectiveness of your AI relies on responsibly managing and securing a wide range of data, including educational records, financial information, and research data. Schools need a unified solution to govern and protect their entire data estate while unlocking its full potential. Fabric, seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Purview, provides comprehensive data governance and protection. It simplifies management, secures sensitive information with role-based access controls, and ensures compliance with privacy regulations. By unifying governance and security, institutions can protect personally identifiable information (PII), prevent data loss, and share insights securely and compliantly.

Play the video to learn how Fabric provides you with an end-to-end analytics platform.

Ensuring compliance is a pivotal step in becoming AI-ready. As you grow and expand your school’s AI innovation, it’s essential to design a strategy that strikes a balance between fueling paths to innovation and addressing pressing security priorities.

Auburn University turned to Microsoft and its comprehensive, flexible tools to develop approaches that would help them move forward and pivot as new technologies emerge. With tools like Microsoft Purview and Microsoft Sentinel providing security, Auburn developed more ways for people to explore AI’s possibilities safely.

Read more about how Auburn University is exploring new ways of using AI.

Additionally, Coquitlam School District faced challenges with data compliance and privacy, especially with unstructured data from teachers. To address these challenges, Coquitlam implemented Fabric and Microsoft Purview. These platforms transformed the district’s data management systems, turning unstructured data into actionable insights. Play this video to learn more about how Coquitlam School Districts achieved their goals around security and educational, operational, and organizational excellence.

Read Coquitlam’s full story and play the video to explore how this district is building a more secure infrastructure and enhancing data insights.

Bring your institution’s data together

Data management is most effective when it’s unified, governed, and compliant. As modern data platforms evolve with generative AI, the potential for data-driven decisions and operational optimizations grows. Fabric and OneLake unify your data and analytics to streamline transformation, deepen insights, and drive AI innovation. OneLake acts as a hub to build AI apps powered by your data, making it easy to virtualize and aggregate data from any source.

Fabric works with OneLake to centralize data, enabling seamless integration and improving data quality. Your institution can take your data from storage to Fabric and then to the Azure AI Foundry portal, where you can build custom AI apps.

Play the video to learn how Fabric and OneLake simplify data management and reduce data duplication.

As your institution introduces dynamic data tools like Fabric and OneLake, you’ll be able to transition to an end-user, self-service model, empowering staff members to access the data they need when they need it, and fostering a culture of data literacy.

The University of South Florida (USF) has accelerated data-driven decision-making by empowering its teams to access information and enriched business insights through a self-service approach. By preparing client technologists to do self-service analysis, USF has taken an important step on its ambitious digital transformation journey.

Read more about how USF is empowering employees to derive insights in minutes.

Empower everyone with access to valuable insights

Access to actionable insights is critical for driving meaningful change and improving decision-making across educational institutions. However, when data remains inaccessible to non-technical users, opportunities for innovation are often lost. Faculty and staff need intuitive tools to transform raw data into insights that support collaboration and institutional growth.

Streamline workloads Explore Microsoft 365 Education

Fabric addresses these challenges by democratizing data access. Seamlessly integrated into Microsoft 365, it allows staff to create reports with drag-and-drop tools and leverage AI to uncover trends and opportunities. Securely connected and certified datasets ensure trusted insights, while centralized databases enable leaders to drive growth and support strategic initiatives.

Politecnico di Milano exemplifies this transformation by leveraging Microsoft Graph Data Connect and Power BI to uncover objective workforce sentiment insights that surpass the limitations of traditional surveys. By accessing near real-time sentiment data, organizations can make quicker, more informed decisions, fostering collaboration and creating supportive work environments—all while maintaining data privacy. This innovative approach highlights how modern tools can revolutionize data accessibility and empower institutions to derive actionable insights at scale.

Read more about how Politecnico di Milano is redefining data-driven collaboration and innovation.

Enhance your AI innovation

Leveraging generative AI streamlines productivity improves quality, and increases value. Fabric, the data platform for the AI era, empowers your data professionals to unify data and build AI models on a single foundation. You can even use Copilot in Fabric to automate data insights, uncover trends, and enable faster interventions. This improves everything from academic outcomes to resource management, all within a transparent and trustworthy AI platform.

Using machine learning to generate actionable insights has enabled Broward College to respond to students’ needs more quickly. The technology allows the team to process data in minutes that would previously take days to complete—and to isolate complicating or potentially misleading factors, like the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student retention.

Read more about how Broward College uses Microsoft data tools to identify and respond to students’ needs.

Fabric is more than a tool—it’s a powerful platform to unlock new possibilities. By centralizing and securing your data, you can drive better outcomes for students, faculty, and your entire educational community.

Ready to start innovating? Begin your data innovation journey and achieve cost savings by signing up for a free 60-day Fabric trial.

Try Fabric for free

Explore the “Make your data AI-ready” training plan to master Microsoft Fabric. Learn to ingest, transform, and store data, and use Power BI to unlock insights for smarter decisions and better educational outcomes.

Start the Fabric training plan

The post Microsoft Fabric: The data platform for the AI era appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

Businesses face the challenge of deploying next-generation applications across hybrid data estates with an ever-growing volume of data spread across diverse environments including from on-premises operational systems, software as a service (SaaS) applications running in multiple public clouds, events from edge devices, objects in file storage, messaging queues, and beyond. As companies increasingly rely on AI and real-time analytics to drive innovation, the ability to seamlessly integrate, process, and analyze this data with low latency has become more critical than ever. The need for a modernized data infrastructure that can support massive data volumes and deliver intelligent, actionable insights at the speed of business is essential.

Striim and Microsoft—Partnering for success with Open Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric

To meet the growing demands of modern data infrastructure, Striim has deepened its longstanding collaboration with Microsoft to offer a new mirroring solution based on Open Mirroring that avoids complex Extraction Transformation Loading (ETL) to transform how businesses manage, integrate, and analyze their data. At the heart of this collaboration is Microsoft Fabric, which is a comprehensive, unified data platform supporting an open format data that combines everything from data integration, analytics, real-time intelligence, business intelligence, and now operational databases. All of these services are supported by Microsoft OneLake, a unified intelligent storage layer that addresses the challenges of decentralized data teams working in silos.

With its fully managed service built on Microsoft Azure, Striim enables businesses to continuously deliver fresh, real-time transactional data into Fabric for seamless, low-latency analytics and AI. As a key data integration partner for Microsoft Fabric, Striim plays a critical role in bridging the gap between siloed data environments, ensuring businesses can harness the full potential of their data with speed and precision.

Mirroring operational SQL data with SQL2Fabric-Mirroring

SQL2Fabric-Mirroring is a new managed mirroring service now available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, developed in collaboration with Microsoft Fabric product teams. This streamlined, automated solution offers a cost-effective, low-latency approach to unifying data from diverse systems into a single analytics platform. Powered by Striim’s real-time data streaming capabilities, SQL2Fabric enables on-premises SQL databases to continuously replicate transactional data directly into Fabric OneLake, ensuring that data is fresh, consistent, and ready for analytics, AI, and decision-making.

Mirroring delivers the operational data into an open, analytics-ready Delta Lake table format. SQL2Fabric Mirroring provides flexibility and scalability, enabling businesses to replicate data seamlessly from multiple sources, without being locked into proprietary formats.

SQL2Fabric Mirroring solution highlights

• On-premises support: Easily replicate on-premises SQL Server transactional data (versions 2012 and up) into Microsoft Fabric.
• Low-latency analytics and AI: Striim’s platform is simple and user-friendly, designed for real-time analytics and AI workloads with minimal delays.
• Automated data and metadata synchronization: Streamline initial snapshot load, ongoing synchronization, and automated schema creation and evolution.
• High log throughput: Efficiently handle large datasets with high-speed log reading interfaces and fast snapshot loads.
• Data transformation and intelligence: Perform inline data enrichment, transformations, vector embedding detection, and protect sensitive data using language models like OpenAI (available in Striim Cloud Enterprise).
• Azure Marketplace availability: Enjoy a free 30-day trial and access the monthly managed service with built-in security, compliance, and data protection for mirroring data from on-premises SQL Server to a mirrored database in Fabric OneLake.

In addition to the SQL2Fabric-Mirroring solution, Striim Cloud Enterprise Solution also extends the mirroring capability to other sources such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and additional databases, NoSQL, and messaging and storage systems. 

Unlock real-time data and AI with Striim and Microsoft Fabric

Striim and Microsoft Fabric provide a powerful solution for real-time data integration, enabling organizations to continuously capture and consolidate data across systems with sub-second latency. Striim’s scalable streaming service transfers data into Microsoft Fabric, where it is centralized in OneLake, a unified multicloud data lake. Striim’s distributed architecture supports vertical and horizontal scaling, leveraging multithreading and parallel pipelines to process large-scale data efficiently. This ensures the solution can adapt to increasing workloads while maintaining low latency. Organizations gain immediate access to up-to-date data for analytics and AI applications, streamlining migration and improving decision-making with real-time insights.

Striim enhances Microsoft Fabric by supporting Change Data Capture (CDC) from popular sources like SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, and Stripe, ensuring continuous data availability. This integration provides a seamless flow of data into Fabric, where its Real-Time Intelligence and Real-Time Hub tools facilitate rapid data ingestion, transformation, and analysis, empowering businesses to leverage real-time AI insights for smarter decisions.

By centralizing data in OneLake, organizations gain a unified platform for AI-powered strategies, boosting operational efficiency and accelerating time-to-market. With tools like Microsoft Copilot and the Workload Development Kit, users can quickly build machine learning models, generate code, and gain actionable insights, helping businesses stay competitive in a fast-evolving, data-driven world.

Modernize your data strategy today

Ready to unlock the full potential of your data and modernize your operations? Discover how Striim and Microsoft Fabric can streamline your data processes, accelerate AI adoption, and enhance decision-making. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your organization transform its data strategy with real-time analytics and AI.

To get started today, visit the SQL2Fabric-Mirroring page on the Azure Marketplace.

Microsoft Fabric

Experience the next generation in analytics with Microsoft Fabric

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The post Mirroring operational data for the AI era with Striim and Microsoft Fabric appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.

Sign up now to secure your spot and save $150 on your registration with the code MSCUST. Offer valid until the conference begins on March 31^st. 

Get up to date on the latest with Microsoft Fabric 

Join us and don’t miss out! The Microsoft Fabric product team, along with customers, partners, and Microsoft MVPs, will be there to share insights on the latest advancements we are making in the era of AI. Dive deep into Microsoft’s data, AI, and governance product portfolio through workshops and sessions led by a stellar lineup of community experts and Microsoft speakers. This will be a great opportunity to connect—and reconnect—with members of the Fabric community and other Microsoft data users worldwide, fostering both personal and professional relationships while learning from your peers’ success stories. 

Here are some of the key topics that will be covered: 

• What’s new and coming to Microsoft Fabric—get ready to power your AI transformation with a powerful, all-in-one unified data platform. 

• Deep dive into our newest releases, including Fabric Databases, Real Time Intelligence, the OneLake Catalog, and more. 

• See how AI-powered experiences in Fabric like Copilot and AI skills can help everyone get more done, faster. 

• Upskill your data teams with hands-on, specific training for roles across your data estate. You can get started today with the “Make Your Data AI Ready with Microsoft Fabric” skilling plan on Microsoft Learn and help your teams master data engineering, Lakehouse, and warehouse solutions.  

• See how you can secure and govern your sensitive data with built-in capabilities in Fabric and seamless integration with Microsoft Purview. 

• Learn how to create innovative, generative AI-powered solutions with Azure AI Foundry and Azure Machine Learning to empower your organization with responsible AI practices. 

• Hear directly from our customers and partners about how they have successfully used Fabric in their AI transformation projects. 

Visit the community lounge and connect with data professionals, including community leaders, super users, student ambassadors, Microsoft MVPs, and more. Whether you want to network, discuss specific topics, or simply relax and chat, the lounge offers a welcoming space for everyone. Enjoy fun activities like trivia, bingo, and scavenger hunts, and don’t miss our newest Real-Time Intelligence racing demos, where you can race to win prizes! 

The Ask the Experts area is also back, where data, analytics, and AI specialists will answer your toughest technical questions. Whether you’re solving a specific problem, exploring new techniques, or just chatting with experts, you’ll find the help you need. Experts include community members, Microsoft engineering and product teams, and the Fabric Customer Advisory Team (CAT), available throughout the event. 

Plus, don’t miss the Interactive Learning Labs, where daily hands-on sessions with experienced data professionals will help you tackle real-world scenarios, learn new skills, and explore the latest features in a collaborative environment. 

Microsoft Fabric Community Conference

Bigger and better than ever.

Join us.

Back by popular demand, you will have the chance to join diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) panels and sessions, offering a safe and welcoming space to discuss today’s most pressing issues. Hear from diverse speakers as they share their stories, perspectives, and best practices for building a more inclusive and equitable data community.  

We are excited to welcome you back to the Fabric Community Conference (#FabCon) and we look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas! 

The post Don’t miss out: Join the 2025 Microsoft Fabric Community Conference  appeared first on Microsoft Fabric Blog.