A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
This update introduces several enhancements to native incremental copy and change data capture (CDC) capabilities in Copy job, including support for additional data source stores for incremental copy, expanded CDC support for SAP Datasphere Outbound for Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage (in addition to Microsoft Cloud Storage), and Column Mapping support for CDC in Copy job.
Click through to see what has changed in the copy job.
Leave a CommentLaura Graham-Brown makes use of a variable library:
You’ve set up your variable pipeline with WorkspaceIDs and LakehouseIDs etc etc Now you want to use that variable library in a data pipeline so we can use the common values and they will behave in a deployment pipeline.
Read on to see how it all works.
Leave a CommentPaul Turley describes a job role:
Analytics Engineer – The DP-600 exam contains elements of both data analytics and data engineering with a business focus. It is the fence-sitter between the disciplined worlds of data engineering and the abstract creativity of analytics. An Analytics Engineer bridges data engineering and analytics by building enterprise-ready solutions in Microsoft Fabric. Combines skills in SQL, DAX, and KQL with expertise in data modeling and performance optimization. They design and manage dataflows, create semantic models, optimize datasets, and ensure governance to deliver curated, analytics-ready data assets for reporting and analysis.
Read on to see how this role fits and some of the things a person performing this role should know and be able to do.
Leave a CommentAndy Brownsword deploys an app:
When using Power BI or Fabric workspaces to browse reports, we’re greeted with a list of items and their attributes. While attention is given to report visuals such as bars, pies, candles, and RAG highlights, the surrounding experience is neglected. When it comes to consumption, the standard interface falls short.
Apps fill this gap. They’ve been around in Power BI for a while, but with the additional layers that come with Fabric, the need for a clean way to present content is increasingly valuable.
Read on to learn about more functionality around apps and how you can set them up in Fabric/Power BI.
Leave a CommentTom Peplow makes an announcement:
In October 2025, we introduced OneLake diagnostics—a powerful capability that helps teams “answer who accessed what, when, and how” across your Fabric Lakehouse environment. OneLake diagnostics streams JSON-based activity logs into a Lakehouse you choose, enabling rich analysis, governance, and compliance workflows. A powerful capability that helps teams “answer who accessed what, when, and how” across your Fabric Lakehouse environment. OneLake diagnostics streams JSON-based activity logs into a Lakehouse you choose, enabling rich analysis, governance, and compliance workflows.
We are strengthening that foundation with the introduction of immutable diagnostic logs—a new capability that ensures diagnostic events cannot be altered or deleted for a defined retention period, giving you tamper-proof data for the entire lifecycle of your logs.
I do like the idea, but beware the additional costs: immutable also means you can’t delete it later, so 10 years from now, you’re still going to be paying for this diagnostic data.
Leave a CommentGilbert Quevauvilliers puts on the lab coat and safety goggles:
I was recently part of a discussion (which I have heard of multiple times), which was which semantic model to use in Microsoft Fabric.
This was the source for this blog post where I am going to compare Microsoft Direct Lake (DL) to an Import Semantic Model. The goal is to first explain how I set up and configured the comparison.
And in the next blog post I will show the tests and the outcome based on my testing.
This is the first part in a series and covers the setup process for testing. We’ll have to wait until next time for the results.
Leave a CommentAnasheh Boisvert puts on the green eyeshade:
In this blog post, we’ll walk through Eventstream’s pricing model to give you a clear understanding of how it works and help you navigate it with confidence.
By the end of this post, you will be able to:
- Comprehend how Eventstream pricing is structured across its components.
- Understand the relationship between Eventstream components and billing meters.
- Review detailed pricing examples to support precise and confident cost estimation.
Read on for a breakdown of the components and several examples.
Leave a CommentLaura Graham-Brown continues a series on variable libraries in Microsoft Fabric:
This post walks through how to access a variable library in a notebook in Microsoft Fabric. I recommend a Microsoft Fabric project starts by creating a variable library to store the common values different artifacts need and could be changed if a deployment pipeline gets involved. So when we create a notebook we need to be able to use these variables. This means we need load the variable library in a notebook and then get the variable values.
Read on for two ways to retrieve information on variables, as well as some recommendations around naming.
Leave a CommentKristina Mishra digs into the Fabric Unified Admin Monitoring tool:
Recently a colleague of mine was inquiring about creating a service principal to use with a Microsoft Fabric Rest APIs proof of concept project we were wanting him to develop for some governance and automation. Since he was still in the research phase, I told him we already had one he could use and did a brief demo on how we use it with FUAM (Fabric Unified Admin Monitoring tool). It occurred to me that others may find this a useful way to learn how to use Fabric or PBI Rest APIs. If you are also fairly new to using pipelines and notebooks in Fabric, then you can get the added bonus of learning through an already created, well-designed and active live Fabric project in your own enviroment. If you do not have FUAM installed in a Fabric capacity, or do not have permissions to see the items in the FUAM workspace, or have no intention/ability do change either of those blockers, then you can stop reading here. Unless you are just generally curious – then feel free to read-on. Or not. You do what works for you.
I personally recommend reading on. It’s kind of a thing I do here.
Leave a CommentJon Lunn checks the status of a data pipeline:
How do you check if a pipeline is running, not from the monitor, but from your Data Pipelines?
Maybe you’re like me and you have a Data Pipeline process that needs to check if some other pipeline else is running. In my case I have to check if a process is running due to Delta tables liking you to have one process writing to them, otherwise you can get concurrency issues as two items are trying to update the same delta table metadata file.
Those tricky metadata items like the process to be exclusive. It’s not just a Delta table issue; this can happen with regular SQL databases tables. So you can use this for anything you want to stop a locking issue or have an exclusive access to an object or just don’t want a process to run while another is doing its thing.
Read on to see how you can check the current status of a data pipeline from within a different data pipeline.
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