Rebecca Lewis continues a series on Microsoft Fabric:
You already know the options. Run heavy reporting queries against production. eewgh. Or stand up a reporting replica, build ETL to keep it current, maintain a refresh schedule, and hope nothing breaks on a holiday weekend. It works, but it’s expensive and has an awful lot of moving pieces.
Fabric gives you a third path: continuously replicate your SQL Server data into OneLake using Fabric Mirroring, and let Power BI read it using Direct Lake mode. Your SQL Server stays focused on OLTP and your reporting runs against a near real-time copy in Fabric. No pipelines. No refresh schedules. Nice.
Read on for the options available with Microsoft Fabric, as well as an endearing note that “real-time” isn’t.