Microsoft is now launching Fabric, an end-to-end data and analytics platform that connects all analytics tools an organisation might need to unlock its data potential. Fabric integrates technologies such as Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI into a single unified product.
Today’s world is full of data, constantly streaming from the devices we use, the applications we build and the interactions we have. Organisations across every industry have harnessed this data to gain competitive advantages. And now, as we enter a new era defined by AI, this data is becoming even more important.
Driving organisation-specific AI experiences requires a constant supply of clean data from a well-managed and highly integrated analytics system. But most organisations’ analytics systems are a labyrinth of specialised and disconnected services. Customers must stitch together a complex set of services from multiple vendors themselves and incur the costs of making these services function together. However, with the help of Microsoft Fabric, organisations can address every aspect of their analytics needs in one place and have a unified experience.
Simon Lidberg, Director Specialist Advanced Analytics & Advanced Data at Microsoft, has been working on developing Fabric for several years. He says:
“What we are doing now is that we are combining our products into a single platform that covers everything from data ingestion, engineering and warehousing to real-time analytics and business intelligence. All these components will be delivered fully integrated into a comprehensive SaaS platform, nothing needs to be installed separately on your own.”
Fabric revolves around Microsoft OneLake, and it also includes an easy-to-use visualisation and AI-based analysis tool called Copilot. This tool represents a big change for the users as AI can now do most of the advanced programming:
”With Copilot, you can have AI build things for you without having to programme yourself. Taking Power BI as an example, it is enough for you to describe the report in plain language and then Copilot can generate it for you. And this does not only apply to Power BI, we will be releasing Copilot for all parts of the Fabric platform. Not only will Copilot help developers become more productive, it will also enable users who have not built complex data products before to work more data driven. “We are very much looking forward to that”, concludes Lidberg.
For more information about Microsoft Fabric and Copilot, listen to episode 53 of Data-Podden (Only available in Swedish) or read more in Microsoft article about introducing Microsoft Fabric