Microsoft Fabric FAQ

Welcome to Climber’s FAQ page for Microsoft Fabric! Here we have collected the most common questions we receive about the BI tools Fabric and Power BI. We cover topics such as functionality, pricing, and integration between the tools. Whether you are new to the platform or an experienced user, we hope this FAQ can help you gain a better understanding of how it can help you analyse and visualise your data effectively, so that you can more easily make better decisions.

1. What is Microsoft Fabric?

It’s Microsoft’s end-to-end data and analytics platform that brings data engineering, data science, real-time analytics, and Microsoft Power BI into one unified environment.

2. How is Microsoft Fabric different from our existing data platform?

It replaces multiple disconnected tools with a single, integrated workspace so teams stop juggling services and start producing insights faster.

3. Do we need to migrate everything at once?

No. Microsoft Fabric supports phased adoption, letting you run existing systems while gradually moving workloads.

4. Is Microsoft Fabric suitable for small and mid-size businesses?

Yes. It scales up or down, and you only pay for the capacity you use.

5. How does Microsoft Fabric improve our data governance?

It centralises data access, rules, and security in one place, reducing risk and making compliance far easier.

6. What tools are included in Microsoft Fabric?

You get data ingestion, data engineering, lakehouse, SQL analytics, real-time analytics, Power BI, AI modelling, and governance that are all built in.

7. Does Microsoft Fabric remove the need for a data warehouse?

Not exactly. Microsoft Fabric gives you a lakehouse and data warehouse side-by-side, so you choose the right storage for each workload.

8. How does Microsoft Fabric help with AI initiatives?

It connects structured data, unstructured data, and machine-learning tools in one ecosystem, making AI projects easier to deploy and scale.

9. Can Microsoft Fabric integrate with our existing tools?

Yes. It supports connections to SaaS apps, databases, cloud storage services, APIs, and legacy systems.

10. Will Microsoft Fabric reduce our overall data costs?

Typically yes. You consolidate tools, reduce duplicated storage, and optimise compute usage through shared capacity.

11. Is our data secure in Microsoft Fabric?

Security is enterprise-grade with encryption, granular permissions, data lineage, auditing, and full Microsoft cloud compliance.

12. How long does it take to get value from Microsoft Fabric?

Most organisations see useful results within weeks, ingest data, build a lakehouse, publish dashboards, repeat.

13. What skills do our team need?

Standard SQL, Python, Microsoft Power BI, and general data engineering concepts are enough to get started.

14. Can Microsoft Fabric handle real-time analytics?

Yes. Event streaming, real-time ingestion, and analytics are native features.

15. Does Microsoft Fabric support unstructured data?

Yes. Images, documents, and large files sit in OneLake and can be used across analytics and AI models.

16. What is OneLake?

It’s the central storage layer of Microsoft Fabric, a single place for all datasets, shared across all tools.

17. How does Microsoft Fabric improve collaboration?

Teams work in one environment with shared data models, shared compute, and consistent governance.

18. How does licensing work?

You buy capacity (SKU) rather than individual services, which simplifies procurement and planning.

19. Do we still need separate ETL tools?

Usually no. Microsoft Fabric’s Data Factory handles pipelines, transformations, and orchestration.

20. How do we get started?

Pick a small use case, finance reporting, data consolidation, or customer analytics then expand once value is proven.