With data-driven work gaining ground, it is extra important for many companies to ensure the quality and accuracy of all data. After all, you don’t want to make decisions based on inaccurate data. But: integrating data from different sources and systems is still a challenge for many companies. How can Microsoft Fabric help with this?
Collecting, storing, managing and using data
To gain valuable insights and support decision-making, companies need to strategically determine how they collect, store, manage and use data. For many companies, it’s a daunting task, involving combining technologies, processes and human expertise. All the while, the need for a robust data management foundation is growing in many organizations and everyone wants to get real value from data.
One single version of the truth
‘Many organizations are struggling with multiple versions of the truth: their data comes from various data sources with different data languages,’ Marc Lelieveld of Macaw explains. The Solution Architect Data Analyst signals a movement toward a single version of the truth. ‘There is a shift towards breaking silos, a desire for a one company strategy. That definitely contributes to that one version of the truth. We have arrived at a new phase of data maturity.’
An umbrella for analytics tools
Fabric, Microsoft’s latest service, seamlessly complements that development, helping companies analyze data without duplication and from a single platform. Fabric is a software as a service (SaaS), aimed at facilitating data management within companies. All workloads are centralized: from data movement to data science, real-time analytics and business intelligence, data lakes, data engineering and data integration. Fabric is like an umbrella for various analytics tools you may already be using, such as DataFactory and Power BI.
Data from multiple sources in OneLake
Fabric understands the need for companies to be flexible and be able to respond quickly to market changes without compromising security, governance and compliance. ‘Within Fabric, OneLake is one of the most important components: OneLake is the place where all data from different sources comes together and is unlocked for all forms of analytics,’ Marc explains. ‘Thanks to OneLake, you avoid duplication of data. That’s not only convenient, but also cost-saving. Because usually storage is quite a cost factor in a company. That will be eliminated with OneLake, which can be seen as the OneDrive or Sharepoint for data.’
Simplicity and ease of use
Data engineers, data scientists and data analysts all work in a similar environment with Fabric. Things like networking, security and firewalls are standard in one platform. You don’t need deployment and end users can work with data mostly without interference from IT. Data is easier to maintain and it is easier to keep an overview; a big plus, especially in larger companies. Fabric also gives insight into who is doing what with what data and who or what is using ( unnecessarily) large amounts of capacity.
Watch our webinar on Fabric
But there’s more to share about Fabric! In our latest webinar Marc, together with Harry Boers (Digital Strategist at Macaw), tells you even more about this service. For example: how is security handled? How can you implement a pipeline in your workspace in Data Factory? Is that really that much easier than when the foundation of your data platform is in Azure? In addition, some revolutionary features of Fabric will be discussed, such as Data Activator. With this automation tool you can easily steer on relevant metrics and quickly take action on data. As a Microsoft Partner, we’d like to invite you to hear all about it in our webinar.
