Ok, now we had a short introduction, now let’s get started with the real stuff. First thing you must learn is:
- The playground. What tools are we going to work with?
- The roles. What roles does Microsoft offer in relation to data and certification?
- The setup. How to get started.
Below is a complete video shown all of this.
1. The playground
You need to understand all the tools that are a part of Microsoft fabric.
You can see it in the below picture from Microsoft.
The core idea is the OneLake. this is the datastore. This is where you put all your data, no matter how you are going to work with it.
You must read this article to understand what OneLake is: What is OneLake? – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn.
Basically think about onelake as a very large (unlimited) filesystem where you can store files.
To gain all the benefit of Microsoft Fabric, then files should be stored in Parquet format. For all of us with Microsoft background, then we don’t know what Parquet format is. Think of it as a file. It is a file. It could have been a CSV file, a TXT file or a more intelligent fileformat. Parquet is just a file format. Read about it here: Parquet format – Azure Data Factory & Azure Synapse | Microsoft Learn
Finally about Onelake…… It is the key to Microsoft fabric. Today we have x tools (like Power BI, Data Activator and so on). Tomorrow we have x^2 tools. But we will always have Onelake. This is the physical storage of your data.
With Onelake you should also know about Onelake Explorer. That is a desktop tool, that makes you work with onelake from your windows browser. Download and read about it here: Access Fabric data locally with OneLake file explorer – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
The other part of Fabric is the tools to work with the data, and in DP-600 you are going to learn about:
- Data Factory What is Data Factory – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
- Data Engineering What is data warehousing in Microsoft Fabric? – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
- Data Warehouse What is data warehousing in Microsoft Fabric? – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
- Data Science Data science in Microsoft Fabric – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
- Real-time Intellingence What is Real-Time Intelligence – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
- Power BI What is Power BI? – Power BI | Microsoft Learn
- Data Activator. Introduction to Data Activator – Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn
2. The roles
When deciding to work with Microsoft tools for data, then you often have to decide what you are going to work with. If you like AI, then you previously would to AI products.
If you like data manipulation, then you might have chosen Microsoft SQL server.
You can be certified in a lot of different roles, and if we combine the roles with functionalities in Microsoft Fabric, then it looks like this:
If I am the boss with all the money (the Decision maker), then I will probably just use Power BI and/or data via Microsoft 365.
If I meet the newly employed data Engineer at the office, then this person probably use Data Factory or Data Engineering tools.
- Data Engineers. Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate – Certifications | Microsoft Learn
- Analytics Engineers. THAT COULD BE US.
- Data Scientists. Training for Data Scientists | Microsoft Learn
- Data Analyst. Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate – Certifications | Microsoft Learn
- Data Steward
3. The setup
There are a lot of things you need to know for getting started.
- Pricing model
- Administration
- Purview
- Governance
Some will be covered later.
The pricing model is quite easy to understand, and you should read about it here: Microsoft Fabric – Pricing | Microsoft Azure
Personally I think the easiest way to setup a fabric solution is through azure portal. Create a subscription and a ressource group and then create a fabric capacity ressource.