What is Microsoft Fabric?

Learn about a unified AI platform that brings together data and analytics into a single experience.

A unified, AI-powered data platform to simplify data management and analytics

Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end intelligent data platform with a suite of cloud services and tools for every data lifecycle stage—ingestion, preparation, storage, analysis, and visualization.

Key takeaways

Microsoft Fabric is a unified, cloud-based data platform that delivers data management and analytics as a software as a service (SaaS).

Fabric provides end-to-end data services, from data ingestion to visualization.

Fabric combines components from Microsoft Azure and other services to provide a unified user experience.

Fabric connects seamlessly with Azure, enhancing Azure data processing and analytics capabilities.

Organizations of all sizes benefit from Fabric, such as by reducing complexity and improving decision-making.

Fabric use cases span industries, including retail, healthcare, and sustainability.

Comparing Fabric with other services

Microsoft Fabric provides multiple experiences—data integration, data engineering, data warehousing, data science, real-time analytics, applied observability, and business intelligence—under a single architecture. To better understand what Fabric does, consider how it operates with and complements other Microsoft data-focused services, such as:

Microsoft Azure SQL Database provides a relational database management system that specializes in data storage and retrieval and queries primarily structured data. Data from Azure SQL Database can be integrated with other data in Microsoft Fabric, which processes larger, more complex datasets, including unstructured data such as image, video, and sensor data.

Microsoft Power BI is a business intelligence tool for data visualization and reporting. Fabric not only encompasses Power BI capabilities but also provides advanced analytics and machine learning functions that generate meaningful insights from raw data.

Microsoft Azure encompasses a broad portfolio of cloud services that IT pros and developers can use to efficiently build innovative, AI-powered apps, including apps enhanced with open, multimodal models and generative AI. Fabric connects seamlessly with the Azure cloud platform, enabling Azure users to access Fabric data storage, processing, and analytics. Fabric users, in turn, benefit from the scalability, reliability, and security of the Azure platform.

Learn more about Fabric features.

Why use Microsoft Fabric?

Here are just a few of the benefits for organizations that adopt Microsoft Fabric:

Supports data-driven decisions: Using built-in AI-powered analytics and machine learning algorithms, Fabric automates repetitive tasks and rapidly uncovers real-time insights needed for faster, more informed decision-making.

Reduced data complexity: Fabric supports all data lifecycle stages in a single, optimized SaaS environment featuring built-in security, governance, and compliance. It collects data from diverse sources then prepares, stores, and analyzes it, eliminating the need to manage disparate tools and systems.

Streamlined workflows: Fabric connects effortlessly with Azure, Power BI, Microsoft 365, and other Microsoft services. Organizations that are already part of the Microsoft ecosystem can use Fabric to help deliver user-friendly, data-driven experiences.

Enhanced cross-organizational collaboration: Users in different roles and on different teams can simultaneously access, manage, and analyze the same data. This results in more effective collaboration and knowledge sharing among data scientists, data analysts, business people, and other users.

Improved scalability and flexibility: Fabric has a cloud-native architecture that handles increasing data volumes and complexities without compromising performance or security. Organizations of all sizes, from startups to large corporations, can drive growth with a data platform that quickly responds to evolving business requirements.

Microsoft Fabric industry scenarios

Fabric features industry-specific solutions designed to help organizations in the following industries drive value from their data faster:

Retail: Convenience, grocery, specialty, and other retailers can use retail-specific data connectors and pipelines to gather and unify data from multiple touchpoints, such as websites, social media, contact centers. They can then enrich the data with industry-specific meaning and context using prebuilt models. Rapid, AI-powered analytic tools deliver customer behavior, sales forecast, and other insights needed for strategic decision-making, such as how to personalize shopping experiences and optimize inventory.

Healthcare: Provider organizations quickly connect data from diverse sources, including electronic health records, medical devices, and patient feedback surveys, in compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and other key healthcare regulations. Using intuitive, prebuilt data pipelines and notebooks, they can efficiently process and analyze unstructured and semi-structured data. Empowered with real-time AI insights, healthcare professionals have a fuller picture of each patient’s health, allowing them to make more accurate diagnoses, deliver personalized treatments, effectively coordinate care, and improve overall patient outcomes.

Sustainability: Organizations across industries can use data lakes, notebooks, and dashboards optimized for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) to ingest, process, and display various sustainability scenarios. They can also use prebuild data pipelines and models to streamline computation of ESG metrics for Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and other disclosure reporting requirements.

Get started with a free Fabric trial

Empower your organization with Microsoft Fabric—a unified data management and analytics platform for driving transformation and innovation in the AI era.

Getting started is simple and straightforward. You don’t need an Azure account but can instead sign up directly on the Fabric platform.

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Resources

Learn more about Microsoft Fabric 

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Guided tour

Take a tour of Microsoft Fabric

See how you can use Fabric to unify all your data and run real-time, on- analytics on a single platform.

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Partner resources

Connect with a Microsoft Fabric partner

Get expert help from a qualified Fabric partner—or, find out how you can become a Fabric partner.

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Webinars

Watch the latest Microsoft Fabric webinar

Hear from experts, see product demos, and get your top questions answered about Fabric experiences.

Microsoft Fabric is a comprehensive solution that manages the full data lifecycle in a single, unified platform. Microsoft Power BI specializes in data visualization and reporting.
Azure offers a broad range of cloud services, including individual services for data storage, processing, and analytics, to support app development in the AI era. Microsoft Fabric, which integrates seamlessly with Azure, unifies these services into a single experience.
No, Microsoft Fabric is designed for organizations of all sizes. It offers scalability and flexibility to meet the evolving data needs of startups and large corporations, a user-friendly interface, and flexible pricing.
Users can sign up for a free Microsoft Fabric trial, which includes access to the Fabric product workloads and the resources to create and host Fabric items.
Yes, Microsoft Fabric is a serverless platform, eliminating the need for organizations to manage servers and other infrastructure. Its cloud-native architecture automatically scales resources as needed, helping ensure optimal performance at all times.
Microsoft Fabric certifications are available for users who want to enhance their platform skills and knowledge and potentially advance their careers. However, a certification isn’t required to use Fabric.

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