Should You Switch to Microsoft Fabric? A Guide for IT Directors
June 13, 2024
Microsoft Fabric is now live. With the launch of this latest data powerhouse tool many IT directors are asking themselves: does it make sense to stick with what we have, or to use Fabric instead?
If you’re pondering this question, this guide is for you. We’ll break down what’s included in Fabric, what functionality overlaps with existing tools, and questions to ask to determine if you should move forward with Fabric at this time.
What is Fabric?
Fabric is an all-in-one unified analytics platform that synthesizes tools from Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI while also adding new tools previously unavailable. For organizations who already use a combination of Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse, and Power BI, Fabric can provide a more integrated option reducing both environment management and monthly subscription costs. It is more powerful than using Power BI alone - Fabric helps you manage bigger workloads with more tools and technologies.
The new pricing structure is similar to other Microsoft offerings such as Microsoft Office. Just as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are rolled together under a Microsoft 365 subscription, features from Azure Data Factory and Azure Synapse are rolled up into a single Fabric subscription. Additional Power BI licensing may still be required with Fabric depending on subscription level.
Audit Experiences Offered in Fabric
This chart shows you the experiences that are a part of Fabric, and which pre-existing tool Fabric draws features from to create that experience. Start here when auditing your existing tools. For example, if you currently use Azure Synapse, Spark and Power BI - you may be better served by moving to Fabric, which includes all of those tools.
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Experience |
Tools |
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Data Factory – Ingest data into your Fabric environment and transform it to the desired format for analytics. |
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Data Engineering – Cleanse and transform data for large-scale analytics and machine learning. |
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Data Science - Train, evaluate, and deploy machine learning algorithms to create predictive insights. |
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Data Warehouse – Combine data from across the enterprise and beyond to create a single source of truth. |
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Real-Time Analytics – Stream, store, and analyze large volumes of data in real-time. |
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Power BI – Explore, analyze and share data through data exploration, dashboards, and reports. |
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Data Activator – Trigger automatic actions based on thresholds set for key performance indicators. |
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Explore more direct comparisons with our two free guides:
Is Microsoft Fabric Replacing Power BI?
Will Microsoft Fabric Replace Synapse or Azure SQL?
Questions to Ask to Determine if Fabric is the Better Choice
If the answer to any of these questions is a yes, then seriously consider moving from your current systems to Fabric.
- Does your organization currently use multiple Azure-based data tools?
- Does managing your Azure-based analytics platform require a significant amount of internal staff time and/or require you to engage outside expertise?
- Have you outgrown your Power BI-based analytics environment? (experiencing slow performance, hitting data size limits, encountering redundant semantic models or duplication of data cleansing efforts)
If you’re still not sure, watch our webinar created for IT directors and data managers to help understand if Fabric is the best option, or contact one of our experts for a free consultation.
Free Resource: Microsoft Fabric - What, Why and How Much [Video Recording]
Explore all the components available in the Microsoft Fabric suite and how they can benefit your organization. This cloud solution is priced to provide you with a low barrier of entry to the latest data analytics solutions. We will also go over the pricing model to enable you to determine the best option for your organization.
Get a walkthrough of features and benefits in our latest webinar, including:
- What is Microsoft Fabric?
- Key Functions of Fabric
- Why is Fabric important to my organization?
- What is the cost of Fabric?
- How do I determine if Fabric is right for my organization?
- Q&A
Superior Consulting Services (SCS) is a Microsoft-centric technology firm providing innovative solutions that enable our clients to solve business problems. We offer full-scale data modeling, analytics and custom app development.