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By Tony & Jordan Berry
Coming out of the Microsoft Ignite conference, we and many other organizations are abuzz with excitement about feature updates and announcements. We’ve summarized our thoughts on the top 10 most impressive feature updates in Fabric, designed to enhance the capabilities and efficiency of data management and analytics. These new features cater to a wide range of users, from data scientists and engineers to business analysts and decision-makers.
Fabric SQL Databases
Microsoft has announced the public preview of the SQL database in Microsoft Fabric, introducing several key features:
Simplified AI Development: Designed to streamline and accelerate the creation of AI applications.
Autonomous and Secure: Offers a self-managing, secure environment for your data.
Integrated Platform: Transforms Fabric from an analytics platform to a comprehensive data platform by integrating operational databases.
Optimized for AI: Enhances efficiency and effectiveness in building AI applications, with user studies showing significant improvements in task completion times.
Check out this blog for more details.
Fabric Open Mirroring
Open mirroring in Microsoft Fabric enables seamless and continuous data replication from operational databases into Fabric OneLake, enhancing data accessibility and analytics capabilities:
Continuous Data Replication: Automatically mirrors data from operational databases into Fabric OneLake.
Landing Zone Integration: Provides a landing zone folder for applications to create metadata files and push data into OneLake.
Efficient Data Storage: Supports Parquet file format with various compression options for efficient analytics.
Read-Only Access: Ensures data integrity by providing read-only access to mirrored data via the SQL analytics endpoint.
Easy Setup: Simplifies the setup process, allowing you to mirror all data or select specific objects to mirror.
For more details, check out the full article.
PowerBI Write Back
A significant announcement was made about the new native write-back capabilities in Power BI, revolutionizing data interaction:
Direct Data Updates: Users can now update data directly within Power BI reports and dashboards.
Enhanced Interactivity: Real-time data manipulation with immediate reflection of changes.
Seamless Integration: Smoothly integrates with existing Power BI features, enhancing overall functionality.
Improved Efficiency: Streamlines workflows by reducing the need for external tools or manual data entry.
User-Friendly Interface: An intuitive interface makes data updates accessible to users of all skill levels.
Check out this LinkedIn post from Prabhakaran Sethuraman to see it further explained.
Fabric Workload Hub GA
The general availability of the Fabric Workload Development Kit was announced, introducing several key features:
Comprehensive Toolkit: Provides a complete set of tools for developing, testing, and deploying workloads in Microsoft Fabric.
Enhanced Developer Experience: Streamlines the development process with integrated debugging, monitoring, and optimization tools.
Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with existing Fabric services and workflows.
Scalability and Performance: Optimized for high performance and scalability, supporting complex workloads.
User-Friendly Interface: Offers an intuitive interface for developers of all skill levels.
We are actually building Interloop’s Mission Control with this capability and more info can be found here.
Fabric AutoML UI
The low-code AutoML interface in Microsoft Fabric offers powerful features for simplifying machine learning:
User-Friendly Interface: Allows users to specify ML tasks and configurations easily.
Pre-Configured Notebooks: Generates tailored notebooks based on user inputs for streamlined workflows.
Comprehensive ML Tasks: Supports regression, binary classification, multi-class classification, and forecasting.
Efficient Data Handling: Integrates with Fabric's lakehouses, supporting various file types like CSV, XLS, and JSON.
Automated Logging: Tracks all model metrics and iterations within existing ML experiments for organized management.
A detailed example with screen images of this exciting capability can be found here.
Real-Time Intelligence GA
A very exciting update was the general availability of the new Real-Time Intelligence workload in Fabric that introduces several powerful features for real time analytics:
End-to-End Solution: Provides comprehensive capabilities for ingesting, processing, analyzing, visualizing, monitoring, alerting, and acting on events.
Seamless Integration: Integrates smoothly with existing Fabric services, enhancing overall functionality.
Real-Time Analytics: Enables immediate insights and actions based on real-time data.
Enhanced Monitoring: Offers advanced monitoring and alerting features to keep track of critical events.
User-Friendly Interface: Designed to be intuitive and accessible for users of all skill levels.
A blog and short demo of this ground-breaking capability can be found here.
API for GraphQL GA
The API for GraphQL was also brought into General Availability “GA” introducing several powerful features for efficient data querying and management:
GraphQL Development Environment: Provides an interactive in-browser playground for composing, testing, and visualizing GraphQL queries and mutations.
Automatic Schema Discovery: Automatically discovers data source schemas and generates queries, mutations, and resolvers.
Multi-Source Support: Supports querying multiple data sources, including Fabric Data Warehouse, Lakehouse, and SQL databases.
Relationship Management: Allows creation of one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships between data objects.
Code Generation: Generates boilerplate Python or Node.js code for local testing and development.
A good description of this feature can be found here.
Azure AI Foundry - Fabric Connector, AI Search, etc.
While not a Fabric specific announcement Azure AI Foundry was launched bringing together several tools for data and AI within Azure:
Unified AI Platform: Azure AI Foundry offers a comprehensive platform for designing, customizing, and managing AI solutions, bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI technologies and practical business applications.
Enhanced Developer Tools: New tools like the Azure AI Foundry SDK and an evolved Azure AI Studio improve the development, testing, and deployment of AI models.
Industry-Specific Solutions: Expanded AI model catalog with specialized solutions for healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and more.
Advanced Analytics: Integration of advanced vector search and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities into Azure Databases.
Responsible AI: New tools for AI safety and compliance, including AI reports and risk evaluations.
A great summary of all these capabilities are detailed here.
Manufacturing Data Solutions
A very comprehensive set of manufacturing data solutions was announced in public preview providing:
Comprehensive Data Integration: Seamlessly integrates data from various sources like MES, machines, sensors, and applications into a unified manufacturing-specific data model.
Enhanced Operational Visibility: Utilizes AI assistants for real-time insights and operational visibility.
Accelerated AI Deployment: Facilitates the rapid deployment of AI solutions across manufacturing operations.
Factory Operations Agent: Provides advanced monitoring and control capabilities, enhancing operational efficiency.
Prebuilt Data Ingestion: Includes plugins for leading MES providers, factory applications, and IoT management platforms.
Semantic Graph Building: Constructs a semantic graph across manufacturing processes for better data-driven decision-making.
Full details can be found here.
PowerBI Summary By Copilot
This was a very interesting example of how Copilot can be an assistant in prepping report summaries for users providing several key benefits.
Automated Insights: Copilot generates summaries for Power BI report pages or full reports, providing valuable insights directly in email subscriptions.
Enhanced Accessibility: Summaries are included in emails, ensuring recipients can quickly grasp key information without opening the full report.
Flexible Delivery: Supports delivery to OneDrive or SharePoint, with summaries still sent via email.
User-Friendly Setup: Easy to enable and customize within the Power BI service.
A great example can be found here
The new features in Microsoft Fabric significantly enhance the capabilities of data management, analytics, and AI integration. By providing robust tools and interfaces, Microsoft empowers organizations to leverage their data more effectively, driving innovation and efficiency across various domains. These advancements not only streamline operations but also enable more informed and agile decision-making, positioning businesses for success in an increasingly data-driven world.
Talk to a Fabric Expert
Want to discuss what these new features mean to your data landscape? We have a team of data experts to support you. Connect with us today!