Fabric Community Conference 2025 just finished this past week. There have been a lot of updates since last year when I published this blog: https://george-walters.com/2024/05/10/microsoft-fabric-presentation-and-links-to-help-you/

Please review that blog for the basics around Microsoft Fabric, and how to migrate towards it from Power BI Premium.

This is the official Microsoft Fabric blog showcasing new features: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-fabric/blog/2025/03/31/fabcon-2025-fueling-tomorrows-ai-with-new-agentic-capabilities-and-security-innovations-in-fabric/

One new overarching collection of blogs is by Worldwide Fabric lead Marc Reguera: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-published-blogs-from-fabcon-marc-reguera-raxec/?trackingId=5x7sLKe5%2Bl5fr2JmbIv%2B6Q%3D%3D

Check the Fabric blog frequently for new updates!

Here are some features to notice:

Shortcuts for OneLake

Shortcuts are objects in OneLake that point to other storage locations. The location can be internal or external to OneLake. 

What is new in Shortcuts?

• Microsoft Fabric shortcuts enable organizations to unify their data. These shortcuts provide integration across various domains and clouds. They achieve this by creating a single virtual data lake.
• Integration with Azure Key Vault allows secure storage and management of secrets, keys, and certificates for connecting to data sources.
• OneLake shortcuts support the discovery of Delta and Iceberg tables, simplifying table access and metadata recognition.
• OneLake shortcuts now support connections to Fabric SQL databases, enhancing data integration.
• OneLake shortcuts support batch creation through REST APIs, streamlining data connection setup.
• OneLake shortcuts now support CI/CD workflows, enabling seamless management and deployment of shortcuts across different environments.

Database Mirroring into Onelake

Mirroring in Fabric is a form of CDC to copy data into OneLake tables.

What is new with Mirroring?

Here are the key points from the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference page:

• Mirroring in Fabric: Enables seamless data replication from any database or data warehouse into OneLake, keeping data up to date in near real-time.
• Firewall Support: Database Mirroring now supports sources behind a firewall, including Azure SQL Database and Snowflake.
• PostgreSQL Flexible Server: Mirroring now supports Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server, allowing continuous replication to OneLake.
• CI/CD Integration: Mirroring supports CI/CD workflows, enhancing development efficiency and reliability.
• Workspace Monitoring: Mirroring supports detailed logs and performance metrics for comprehensive monitoring.
• Schema Replication: Mirroring preserves source database schema hierarchy in the mirrored database.
• Delta Column Mapping: Supports special characters in table column names for seamless replication.

SQL Database in Fabric

You can spin up a SQL Database inside Fabric!

SQL database in Microsoft Fabric is a developer-friendly transactional database. It is based on Azure SQL Database. A SQL database in Fabric uses the same SQL Database Engine as Azure SQL Database. It is a preview feature and currently has a 4TB size limit.

SQL Database in Fabric also gets a Copilot assistant!

What data store should I use?

Here is a decision guide for whether to store data in the Lakehouse, Warehouse, Eventhouse, SQL Database, or Power BI Data Mart.

Security

Microsoft Fabric is a SaaS platform, like many other Microsoft services such as Azure, Microsoft Office, OneDrive, and Dynamics. All these Microsoft SaaS services including Fabric, use Microsoft Entra ID as their cloud-based identity provider. Microsoft Entra ID helps users connect to these services quickly and easily from any device and any network.

Call to Action:

Enable a trial of Microsoft Fabric, or start by provisioning a F-sku in your Azure subscription.