My Reflections on the first European Microsoft Fabric Community Conference
#FabConEurope: A New Era for Microsoft Fabric in Stockholm
The inaugural #FabConEurope held in Stockholm from September 24-27, 2024, marked a significant milestone for the Microsoft Fabric community. This event brought together enthusiasts, experts, and innovators to explore the latest advancements in data, analytics, and AI. With over 130 sessions, 4 keynotes, and 10 workshops, attendees were immersed in a wealth of knowledge and networking opportunities.
Key Announcements and Highlights
One of the most surprising and exciting announcements at FabConEruope was the introduction of mirroring an Azure Databricks Unity Catalog within Microsoft Fabric. This feature allows users to seamlessly integrate Databricks’ popular governance solution for data and AI, reducing friction around data governance processes and enhancing security. This integration is a game-changer for organizations looking to streamline their data operations and governance.
The conference also saw the launch of the new Terraform Provider for Microsoft Fabric in public preview. This provider empowers users to automate and streamline their deployment and management processes in a declarative manner, enhancing governance and compliance.
Service principal support for Fabric APIs was also introduced, allowing for more secure and automated access to Fabric applications. This feature is a significant step forward in enhancing security and streamlining processes
In addition, the general availability of Fast Copy in Dataflows Gen2 was announced. This feature enables rapid and efficient ingestion of large data volumes, significantly reducing data processing times and improving cost efficiency.
Microsoft Purview also made headlines with its focus on responsible data activation in the era of AI. The new features aim to provide a business-friendly experience with AI-powered efficiencies, ensuring robust data governance and security. Great to receive an awesome shout out by the Purview team for all the work we did. Governance is so important in the world of AI.
The public preview of the Copy Job in Microsoft Fabric was announced, simplifying the data ingestion process from any source to any destination.This feature makes copying data easier and more efficient.
Exciting enhancements were also revealed for Fabric Data Factory Pipelines, including new activities like Invoke Remote Pipeline and support for Fabric User Data Functions.These enhancements aim to make data workflows more robust and flexible. This new functionality makes it even easier to build Meta Data Driven Frameworks.
Lastly, the introduction of high concurrency mode for notebooks in pipelines for Fabric Spark was a notable highlight.This feature allows for session sharing, improving performance and cost efficiency without compromising security.
Another notable announcement was the private preview of the Microsoft Fabric Capacity Calculator. This innovative tool is designed to provide precise capacity estimations tailored to individual business needs, helping organizations optimize their data operations.
The Native Execution Engine for Fabric Spark was another highlight, offering a groundbreaking enhancement for Apache Spark job executions.This vectorized engine optimizes performance and efficiency by running Spark queries directly on lakehouse infrastructure. On the last day of the conference I shared the stage with Estera and her team to show the attendees the testing results we have been gathering during the private preview. 
Personal Highlights
In the afternoon, I hosted my own session Microsoft Fabric: Building a Data Ingestion and Processing framework to Drive Efficiency in a packed room. Thank you all for attending, engaging, and asking questions. As promised, you can find the session code on my GitHub.
All released Blog post during the conference
I’ve made a collection of all the blogpost which have been released during the Conference, just to summarize:
Data Factory
Integrate your SAP data into Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Real Time Intelligence
Set alerts on KQL Querysets with Data Activator triggers | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Warehouse
Announcing improved JSON support in Fabric DW | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Working with large data types in Fabric Warehouse | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Copilot for Data Warehouse: Public Preview Update | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Announcing Public Preview of T-SQL Notebook in Fabric | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Data Science
Data Activator
Announcing Updates to Data Activator in Public Preview | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Data Engineering
Announcing the Fabric Apache Spark Diagnostic Emitter: Collect Logs and Metrics | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
OneLake
Tag your data to enrich item curation and discovery | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Set alerts on KQL Querysets with Data Activator triggers | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
I’m sure I’ve missed some but then we have still the monthly update: Fabric September 2024 Monthly Update | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
Reflections on #FabConEurope
The energy and enthusiasm at #FabConEurope were palpable. The event not only showcased the latest technological advancements but also fostered a sense of community and collaboration. In conclusion, #FabConEurope was a resounding success, setting the stage for future advancements in the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem. The announcements and discussions at the conference have paved the way for a more integrated, efficient, and responsible approach to data management and analytics.
- My Reflections on the first European Microsoft Fabric Community Conference
- Microsoft Purview Data Governance Public Preview Rolllout
- How to use mssparkutils.notebook.runMultiple in Notebooks in Microsoft Fabric?
- Video: Learn Live Use Data Factory pipelines in Microsoft Fabric
- How to use the PySpark executor in Notebooks in Microsoft Fabric?
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