Microsoft FabCon Day 2: The Journey and Microsoft Fabric Featured Partner Insights

For Day 1 Microsoft FabCon Blog and Updates: Read here

Well my travel optimism lasted until 1:50am on Sunday morning which is when I woke up.  I gave up trying to get back to sleep at 4am and went looking for a coffee at 5am.  I find it a bit depressing that you can wander through a casino at 5am on a Sunday morning and see people sat pouring money into slot machines.    Each to their own, I suppose.  On the positive side I did manage to find a Fatburger outlet in the hotel complex so every cloud….

The journey over was largely uneventful – which is about as much as you can hope for on a long-haul journey.  However, the short flight from Manchester to Amsterdam had a minor, slightly awkward moment. The gentleman beside me dropped something during the descent announcement (I felt it hit my foot) but didn’t immediately search for it. Given the cramped space, I had to perform some impressive contortions, using the armrests to lift myself and awkwardly wedge my knees onto the seatback screen to give him room. He eventually found his glasses – that explained the pause – and I discovered a surprising degree of flexibility I didn’t know I possessed!

Impressions of Las Vegas

I used to travel to Bakersfield for work quite a lot and at that time (somewhere between 15 to 20 years ago) the now defunct BMI Airlines flew Manchester to Las Vegas.  I’d take that flight, stay over in Vegas then get a morning hop over to Bakersfield the following day.  15 years later, Vegas looks, well, kind of the same, just 15 years older –  it’s in need of a bit of a refresh.  

The New Las Vegas Stadium is being built on the site of the former Tropicana hotel and will be the new home stadium of the Athletics who are relocating from Oakland.   According to my taxi driver from the airport, there are several refurbs in progress too.  

Microsoft Partner Pre-Day (what *is* a “pre-day”?)

Did you know Simpson Associates were awarded one of Microsoft’s Global Partner of the Year awards in 2024 (POTY)? So, today seemed like the perfect opportunity to wear my Simpson Associates branded POTY polo top.

Walking to the MGM Conference Centre at 8am on a Sunday morning the weather was overcast with a cold, gusty breeze.  That was NOT in the brochure.  It was cold enough for me to divert into the MGM Grand and wander through the casino to find the conference centre rather than stay outside.  

In the official FabCon app, there was no agenda for the Partner Day other than a room and a time of 8am – 6pm, so I wasn’t sure what to expect – I’m not a great mingler (despite doing mingling training in a previous job – probably a story for another blog) so I was hoping it wasn’t 10 hours of polite conversation.  

We were told that 1,700 partner individuals from 1,000 companies had registered for FabCon and that 500 attendees from 300 companies were present at the pre-day.   Which begs the question, where were the other 1,200?

First Impressions and the Key Points covered:

The day kicked off with the kind of polished enthusiasm you’d expect: a video of partners praising Microsoft Fabric The numbers that Microsoft quote are quite interesting though:  

• 19,000 Microsoft Fabric Customers.

• 45,000 Fabric Individuals Trained.

• 23,000 Partner Certifications with the DP-600 exam being their fastest growing certification ever.

• 16,000 “Wins”.

• 70% of Fortune 500 Companies are using Fabric, with 50% leveraging three or more workloads.

That last bit is key – while the free trial has driven initial interest, the real indicator of success is the increasing number of users finding sufficient value in Fabric to run multiple workloads, showing it’s truly resonating. The established dominance of Power BI, with its 95% Fortune 500 customer base, provides a powerful and positive foundation for the continued growth and adoption of Microsoft Fabric. 

The Microsoft Fabric Market Positioning: Starting Right, Working Left

In my first Blog, I had hoped for clarity on market positioning: Is Fabric a disruptor looking to displace platforms like Databricks and Snowflake, or a complementary technology?  

Today’s sessions leaned toward the latter, but with a pragmatic twist: leveraging their massive Power BI install base to seamlessly introduce Fabric on the reporting and analytical side – where Power BI already excels.  Once deployed, the opportunity is there for a land-grab working left, confidently tackling more workloads along the way.

The partner panel echoed this, suggesting Fabric can slot into specific use cases alongside Snowflake or Databricks, without necessarily looking to displace them and offering users valuable flexibility. I think they’ve got this right. 

A member of the audience asked whether SAP’s recent partnership with Databricks “was bad news for Fabric”, but the response was, “It’s not exclusive access to Databricks.  It shows that SAP is now moving towards open data formats and data lakes, and that’s good for the industry”.  Microsoft see Fabric as part of an open ecosystem and SAP’s move validates the model.  The panel believed that Fabric can still carve out a niche without the need to go head-to-head with the likes of SAP or Databricks.

Innovations: Real-Time and Workloads 

Key updates from the last six months were highlighted and real-time intelligence got a shoutout. There has been a 360% year-over-year growth in active users of the real-time capability. I called out real-time analytics enhancements in Blog 1, so it’s good to see momentum there.

The Fabric Workload Development Kit

The Workload Development Kit lets partners add their own custom data tools into Microsoft Fabric to sit alongside existing tools like Power BI and Data Factory.  The tool can be published to the Workload Hub (store) and Fabric users can discover, try, and eventually buy it. 

Three workloads are now generally available including Profisee for master data management and Osmos for data ingestion and cleanup.   

For younger readers, the Microsoft MDM story is quite interesting.  They acquired Stratature which became SQL Server Master Data Services (MDS).  If ever there was an application made for cloud, it was Master Data Services but I’m not sure that the SQL Server team ever really understood what they had bought so MDS wasn’t developed much further and eventually faded.  Meanwhile the Stratature owners set up a new company called Profisee and (kind of) did the whole thing again.  SQL Server Data Quality Services (DQS) came from an acquisition of a company called Zoomix.  It too looked ideal for deployment to cloud but went the same way as MDS.   This time, letting partners like Profisee and Osmos drive development in areas that aren’t core Microsoft strengths seems much more sensible and much more likely to work.   Big tick from me. 

Mirroring is also improving, with GA support for Snowflake and Azure SQL DB, and public preview for Oracle, MongoDB, and CluedIn. However, there is a catch; mirroring is free and simple, but there are limitations which necessitate primary keys on tables to support change data capture (CDC).   The alternative discussed by the panel would be to support append-only tables which would be fine for sensor and log data but less so for transactional tables.  The summary is that Microsoft don’t expect any changes here that would make the mirroring process more sophisticated.  The idea of mirroring is to give a simple way to land data into OneLake from where any additional processing or transformation can take place. 

AMA: Ask Me Anything Session

The Ask Me Anything session with Amir, Arun and Kim Manis was the highlight of the day – unscripted, honest and occasionally blunt. The questions were good, and the answers reasonably direct. Here are some of the key questions and topics covered:

Pricing and Performance Transparency

In relation to this question, an audience member if there were better cost estimation tools beyond the current capacity estimator. The answer delivered: “Use the trial version of Fabric – build a PoC and see for yourself. There is not an exact formula we can apply because workloads vary too much.”

Microsoft are working on scenario-planning tools, but for now, the advice is to use trial and error, evaluating your data needs and how to progress to the next level. Although the capacity calculator is available, different organisations have tailored needs, in order to optimise and unlock your data.

Discovering whether the capacity you need to run is affordable is not an issue for smaller apps and departmental solutions. In fact, an opportunity presents itself for knowledge and experience share, relating to building solutions at an enterprise scale, therefore gaining more confidence into the estimating process. In summary, whether my Synapse workloads cost more or less on Fabric is still to be explored.

Platform Clarity

The SQL Database in Fabric announcement was focused upon. It’s coming to GA soon, with Cosmos DB next – positioning Fabric as a “translytical” hub for data applications.

One audience question cut to the chase: “People say Fabric is not production ready; there is too much fluff, it is not the tool for serious data analytics workloads.” Ouch – the response was pretty good:

“We hear that too but look at the numbers – over 19,000 customers, incredible growth, a healthy net promoter score (one of our best at Microsoft). Quantitative feedback is strong. Qualitative feedback is different; business users love the self-service aspect of the platform, but IT architects compare it to other platforms and see gaps like incomplete CI/CD and Terraform. We’re plugging those holes to shake the ‘not ready’ stigma – things are getting more robust.”

The panel also emphasised support and stability, reinforcing that quality, reliability and supportability is their number one focus, stating: “Quality, reliability, supportability is our number one focus. We’re tracking error messages, improving documentation, and need partners to keep us honest.” They admitted that despite Microsoft Fabric being more mature in some ways, there are still continuous improvements to be made with others, with support issues a known pain point. “Most of our work at the moment isn’t new features – it’s finishing and polishing existing ones. It’s not keynote-sexy, but it’s critical.”

This move towards a stable, supportable platform feels like a significant sensible step forward. Most IT departments would probably agree, and this may change the perception of Microsoft Fabric, reinforcing the benefits of this innovative solution.

On the data governance front, the OneLake data catalogue will be improved with better admin tools to track usage. OneLake Catalog is the tool which will allow data engineers and business users to find the data they need in context, and will show up in Excel, Teams, or AI Foundry. Microsoft Purview, meanwhile, is pitched as the ‘catalogue of catalogues’, tying together OneLake, Unity, Polaris, and the wider Office and security estates for proper IT oversight.

OneLake Catalog is aimed at engineers and business users. Whilst Microsoft Purview is aimed at the CISO, compliance, and the IT governance teams. This demonstrates the fact that Microsoft are serious about balancing usability with control which is another step in the direction of enterprise credibility. “We know that we have to create a balance between empowering the business whilst giving IT the confidence that it will not look like a nuclear wasteland afterwards”.

In relation to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Microsoft Fabric’s dual vision was discussed:

• Productivity tools (like CoPilot for DAX) are improving – “We’re looking at AI tackling whole projects, not just bits, but no news soon”

• AI Agents are on the horizon. With the vision of front-end agents answering user questions with context, or back-office agents managing processes such as order reviews or inventory, guided by your rules.
  

There was a view that society is a little ahead of itself with AI. Long-term savings are real, but right now, technical expertise and solid data foundations are needed to take the next step towards AI in the future but the future vision is exciting. A quote from Microsoft includes – “People tend to overestimate the next year, but underestimate the next decade.”

Simpson Associates Microsoft Specialisations

Last week, Simpson Associates achieved the “AI Platform on Microsoft Azure” specialisation, our fourth. Microsoft quotes 352 as the number of partners worldwide holding the AI specialisation, meaning that only a handful of partners worldwide qualify, and we’re one of them. This clearly showcases the expertise and dedicated experience of our Simpson Associates team. More branded merch required.

Vegas Vibes and Day Two Reflections

Despite my early start, the day was insightful and delivered more than I expected. Microsoft’s focus on and support is good news though pricing is still something to explore further. For customers, Microsoft Fabric implementation can be considered a pragmatic, innovative fit. It is a platform adapting to community feedback and constantly demonstrating the powerful benefits. Let’s see what tomorrow’s keynote brings. For now, it’s a walk back to the hotel with a stop off at Fatburger.

Blog Author: Mick Horne, Data Analytics Practice Manager at Simpson Associates.

View the other FabCon blogs here, and keep up to date with the latest updates direct from Las Vegas.

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