A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
Yichao Wu makes an announcement:
Workspace folders are an easy way for you to efficiently organize and manage items in the workspace. We’re pleased to share that Folder Rest API is now in preview. Create and manage folders in automation scenarios and seamlessly integrate with other systems and tools.
I’m hoping this means source control for folders is also forthcoming.
Comments closedMarco Russo summarizes the announcements:
I usually do not write about announcements and new features until we have had time to try and test them in the real world. However, there are always exceptions, and some of the announcements at the Microsoft Fabric Conference 2025 fall into this category because I have worked with them enough to provide hands-on feedback.
In short, these are the topics I am covering in this blog post:
- Direct Lake and Import mode
- Calendars in DAX
- User-Defined Functions (UDF) in DAX
These weren’t the headline-grabbers of the conference, but Marco explains the importance behind each of them.
Comments closedMiquella de Boer gives us an update:
Microsoft Fabric shortcuts enable organizations to unify their data across various domains and clouds by creating a single virtual data lake. These shortcuts act as symbolic links to data in different storage locations, simplifying access and reducing the need for multiple copies.
OneLake serves as the central hub for all analytics data. By using OneLake shortcuts, organizations can connect to existing data sources like Azure and AWS through a unified namespace, streamlining workflows and enhancing collaboration.
Click through for several feature improvements for shortcuts.
Comments closedIdris Motiwala announces a set of changes:
Attention data engineers, database developers, and data analysts! We’re pumped to reveal exciting upgrades to Mirroring for Azure SQL Database in Fabric today at the Fabric Conference in Las Vegas 2025. Since it became Generally Available, Mirroring for Azure SQL Database has been a game-changer, letting you replicate data seamlessly and integrate it within the Fabric environment. We’re talking near real-time data accessibility and some serious analytics power!
Click through to see what’s new, as well as what’s upcoming. This is specifically for Azure SQL DB and Azure SQL Managed Instance, versus SQL Server running as an Azure VM or on-premises (or some other cloud), so calibrate expectations accordingly.
Comments closedHasan Abo Shally announces a CLI:
- The Fabric CLI is now in preview
- It offers a developer-first, file-system-inspired way to explore and manage Microsoft Fabric
- Use it interactively or script it into your workflows — from your terminal, in seconds
- Built on Fabric APIs, designed for automation, and constantly evolving
- Open source is on the horizon — with plans to empower the community to extend and shape the CLI
Give it a try. Break things. Tell us what you want next.
Click through for the full announcement. The idea here is to be the az cli for Fabric. Between this and Semantic Link Labs, it will make automating tasks in Microsoft Fabric easier.
Comments closedSuppose you want to call a certain Microsoft Fabric REST API endpoint from Azure Data Factory (or Synapse Pipelines). This can be done using a Web Activity, and most Fabric APIs now support service principals or managed identities. Let’s illustrate with an example. I’m going to call the REST API endpoint to create a new lakehouse.
Click through for the instructions.
Comments closedMiles Cole picks up from part one:
This is part 2 of my prior post that continues where I left off. I previously showed how you can use Resource folders in either the Notebook or Environment in Microsoft Fabric to do some pretty agile development of Python modules/libraries.
Now, how exactly can you package up your code to distribute and leverage it across multiple Workspaces or Environment items? How could we acomplish something like the below?
Read on for the answer.
Comments closedAaron Merrill announces some upcoming changes:
This evolution of OneLake security is still in development. Over the next few months, we will be expanding OneLake security’s integration across the platform, adding even more robust capabilities, and boosting performance. Customers wishing to get an early look at these capabilities and provide feedback before the broad public preview, can sign up for the early access preview. Once we’ve enabled your workspaces, these new features will show up as new capabilities within OneLake data access roles.
Click through to see what’s on the list. The original promise of a single security model covering all data in Microsoft Fabric is still quite a ways away, though this is a step in the right direction.
Comments closedPatrick LeBlanc puts together a big list:
Welcome to the March Feature Summary!
From the innovative Variable library (Preview) to the powerful Service Principal support in the CI/CD features, there’s a lot to explore. Dive in and discover how the new Partner Workloads in Fabric bring cutting-edge capabilities to your workspace. Plus, enhanced OneLake security ensures your data is protected. And don’t miss out on the expanded regional availability for Eventstream’s managed private endpoints, making it easier for organizations worldwide to build secure, scalable streaming solutions.
With FabCon kicking off today, the announcements are rolling in! Get ready to explore these features and more in the March 2025 updates for Fabric!
FabCon triggered a large number of big announcements, and considering that the outline takes up about a page and a half, there’s a lot to dig into here.
Comments closedAmar Digamber Patil makes an announcement:
While compute and data storage are already included in the Fabric capacity-based billing model, after April 1, 2025, backup storage will also be billed. However, customers will only be charged backup storage that exceeds the allocated database size.
Click through to see what’s changing and how to get ahead of this. I’m not sure there are any ways to reduce that backup price, short of managing the data in your database and not having enormous amounts of transaction log activity.
Comments closed