At a recent Oakland event co-hosted with Microsoft, we had the pleasure of welcoming Chris Webb, a seasoned Microsoft Fabric expert and member of the Fabric Customer Advisory Team. Chris ran a session exploring Microsoft Fabric in full, answering:
- What is Microsoft Fabric?
- Why does it exist?
- Microsoft Fabric VS Power BI: Is there a need for both?
- Microsoft Fabric VS Databricks: How do they stack up?
- Why does Fabric promise to reshape the landscape of enterprise data platforms?
Below, we round up the insight Chris shared during the informative session – a must-read if you’re considering modernising your data stack.
How Microsoft Fabric Empowers Radical Simplification
For organisations navigating increasingly complex data estates, Microsoft Fabric promises a radical simplification.
“Fabric isn’t just a bundle of tools; it’s an integrated platform designed from the ground up to work seamlessly, making it far easier to extract value from data without the usual configuration headaches.”
– Chris Webb, Microsoft Fabric expert and Fabric Customer Advisory Team Member
But what spurred Microsoft to develop Fabric, and what problems did they set out to solve with another data platform?
The Need for Another Microsoft Data Platform
If you’re already invested in a secure Azure data platform, it may not be the first time you’ve asked this. Azure already boasts tools like Power BI, Azure Data Factory, Spark, and Synapse. However, as Chris noted, combining these services to build a functioning data platform has historically been complex and time-consuming.
Interested in Azure? Find out how we delivered a Microsoft Azure platform to leverage market expansion and growth for Emerald Publishing.
What Fabric offers is a unified software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform where everything is pre-integrated. With Fabric, you don’t need to spend time wiring services together, managing multiple security layers, or stitching storage solutions across products. You simply turn on Fabric, and everything, from data ingestion and transformation to data warehousing, reporting, and governance, works together by default.
At the heart of Fabric is OneLake, a single storage location where all workloads store data in the Delta format. This allows teams to move from ingestion to insight without needing to copy or reformat data, a significant leap forward in usability and performance.
Read our blog to understand if it’s right for you:
Microsoft Fabric: Power BI with Superpowers
For many, Fabric’s appeal begins with familiarity. Chris, a Power BI specialist at heart, explained that Fabric ‘is effectively Power BI with superpowers’. It builds on Power BI’s ease of use and widespread adoption, empowering 30 million monthly users and over 375,000 paying customers with enterprise-grade tools for engineering, science, and real-time intelligence.
In part, Microsoft Fabric was built because so many organisations already trust Power BI. Instead of talking about Microsoft Fabric VS Power BI, we’re talking about the two solutions learning from one another.
“We’re taking the Power BI way of working (focused on customer feedback and monthly innovation) and bringing it to the enterprise data platform as a whole.”
– Chris Webb, Microsoft Fabric expert and Fabric Customer Advisory Team Member
Oakland’s Partnership with Microsoft
Did you know Oakland is a Microsoft Data and AI solutions partner? Our people are Microsoft-certified in Data and AI, Power Platform, Infrastructure and Security, as part of the Microsoft Partner Network.
Rapid Growth and Real-World Adoption of Fabric
Since its launch just 15 months ago, Fabric has seen explosive adoption. Over 19,000 customers are already using Fabric, and more than half of them are running three or more workloads beyond Power BI. What’s more, 70% of Fortune 500 companies are now Fabric users.
Chris highlighted UK-based case studies to show real-world momentum:
- Iceland, the supermarket chain, is using Fabric for real-time transaction analysis.
- Centrica, a major energy company, and the London Stock Exchange Group are deploying Fabric to power their enterprise data strategies.
Who will be next?
What’s New from FabCon: Key Feature Announcements
We couldn’t be in Las Vegas for FabCon, but Chris brought the pizazz to Leeds and touched on some of the most exciting product announcements and updates.
OneLake Security advancements
Now, you can apply row-level and column-level security once in OneLake, and that single policy flows through all workloads. That’s whether users are querying data in Python notebooks, SQL, or viewing dashboards in Power BI. It’s a game-changer for data governance, significantly reducing complexity for enterprise teams managing sensitive data.
Copilot for Power BI sees accessibility expanded
Previously limited to higher-capacity SKUs, Copilot for Power BI will now be available in all Fabric capacities starting from F2. This means organisations of any size can now use natural language to explore data, create reports, and uncover insights without writing a single line of code.
Chris confirmed that by the end of this month (May 2025), the feature will be much more accessible, democratising analytics powered by artificial intelligence.
Real-time intelligence gets a boost
Real-time analytics has emerged as a breakout feature in Fabric. Chris described how organisations, like Porsche Racing, are ingesting high-frequency telemetry data from vehicles and analysing it in near real time.
Recent updates to Event Streams and Event House now make it even easier to integrate and act on data from a range of sources, including new connectors, like MQTT and weather feeds. The ability to run SQL transformations in-stream was also highlighted as a major feature coming soon.
Materialised Views in Spark
Chris demonstrated how Materialised Views allow Spark developers to build complex transformation pipelines: bronze to silver to gold layers without managing orchestration. Fabric:
- Auto-resolves dependencies
- Runs quality checks (read our article on why you should invest in data quality)
- Surfaces visual lineage to simplify debugging
These views appear as Delta tables and can be queried directly in Power BI or SQL, showcasing Fabric’s tightly integrated architecture.
End-to-end developer experience
Another demo showed a deeply integrated development workflow combining SQL, Python, user-defined functions, and new variable libraries. These libraries make it easy to define parameters that update automatically when moving from dev to test to production environments, streamlining deployment and reducing the risk of errors.
The notebook experience in Fabric now rivals the flexibility of platforms like Databricks, while offering much tighter integration with Microsoft tools.
Use our blog to understand Microsoft Fabric VS Databricks: Taming your data assets with Databricks.
Will Power BI be Forgotten?
With all these advancements in mind, there was a common concern among event attendees: Has Power BI been left behind as Fabric takes centre stage?
No.
Power BI continues to evolve as a core part of Fabric, with major updates to visuals, slicers, and storage modes. One of the biggest innovations is DirectLake mode, which combines the speed of import with the freshness of direct query. No more waiting for scheduled refreshes. Good news all-around!
Microsoft Fabric is More than a Product – it’s a Strategy
Chris Webb’s presentation made one thing obvious: Microsoft is positioning Fabric not just as another data tool, but a fundamental rethinking of how enterprises manage, analyse, and act on their data. I.E., their overarching data strategy.
From real-time intelligence to AI-driven development, unified governance to Power BI integration, Fabric empowers businesses to do more with less complexity.
Head to our guide for full details on how to write your data strategy.
Modernise your data stack with Oakland
If your organisation is looking to modernise its data stack, now might be the time to consider Microsoft Fabric. Engaging a Microsoft Fabric consultant, like our experts at Oakland, can help you accelerate your adoption, avoid common pitfalls, and make sure your data investments deliver value from your data assets.
Get in touch to talk about all-things data stacks and Fabric, or book a free exploratory workshop with our data consultants.
