Finally, I’ve found time to dig deeper into Microsoft Fabric

So finally I’ve found time to dig deeper into Microsoft Fabric, the newcomer in Microsofts data platform family. I’ve played a bit with it and I thought I should blog about some distinct differences in between Azure Synapse Analytics and SQL Server. In the beginning, I have to admit, that MS Fabric quite confused me in terms of what it could mean for Azure Synapse.

Now that I’ve got more knowledge through reading into it and more importantly, playing around with it, I can draw some conclusions. But first and foremost, I think anyone should understand that MS Fabric is a SaaS offering, while Azure Synapse is a PaaS offering. This means that inherently, there are different approaches and use cases for both.

Fabric vs Synapse?

Anyways, I do not think that MS Fabric is going to replace Azure Synapse. I guess both will co-exist. Just like the way for example, Azure SQL and Azure SQL Managed instance co-exist. They both do not mean that they are going to replace SQL Server, neither will any of them replace each other. There are some hints for this, one being this video:

This video deserves much more attention than it has (shout-out to Ginger Grant for pointing me to this video!). Also the channel needs much more attention than it does have!

As I am intending to start a small series about Fabric, I want to begin with some differences, as I mentioned in the beginning of the article.

Roundup

• Fabric has in its core, center, and is functioning around one concept: OneLake. I believe this is the thing that makes the magic of all of it possible in the first place. All services around it, they work incredibly smoothly and well together. I really admire that concept.
• OneLake inherently improves the concept of having a better convergence of people working with data, one and non-duplicated data. Think about this: Data Scientists, Data Engineers, and heck, Business Analysts can share their data in one place. One place to rule them all (data, not the people 😉). I think that is quite revolutionary if you think about the fact that most data today are pretty much scattered in data silos. Fabric is all about breaking up data silos.
• While Fabric as it is today, does integrate many services existing today in one SaaS offering, it does not cover all abilities of each service. Nevertheless, it is a strong, powerful and very enjoyable tool to work with.

So this is the start of the mini series in which I will blog about Fabric. I will try to keep it succinct as possible and blog what I’ve am learning about Fabric or Azure Synapse Analytics, to help you to understand the differences and similarities of them.