FabricCatalyst: Automating Microsoft Fabric Deployments

Are you ready to automate and streamline Microsoft Fabric deployments? In this session, I’ll introduce FabricCatalyst, a project I built to simplify the deployment and management of Microsoft Fabric environments using PowerShell scripts and the Fabric REST API

We’ll dive into Auto Deployment, a FabricCatalyst feature that automates key tasks, including:
1. Creating Git branches to organize your development process.
2. Provisioning Git-enabled workspaces in Microsoft Fabric.
3. Setting up deployment pipelines to manage content workflows.
4. Assigning workspaces to specific stages in the deployment pipeline.

I’ll also walk through some practical PowerShell code examples, best practices and recommendations including the importance of using Invoke-WebRequest over Invoke-RestMethod to handle Long Running Operations (LRO) with the Fabric REST API

By the end of this session, you’ll gain practical insights and techniques for automating Fabric environments with PowerShell & DevOps; whether you're a PowerShell enthusiast or exploring Microsoft Fabric for the first time, this session will equip you to take your automation skills to the next level.

This session showcases FabricCatalyst, a demo-driven solution designed as an internal accelerator for companies in the Nordics and Europe, demonstrating the potential of Microsoft Fabric automation at scale through its public API.

The talk has been requested by the Microsoft Fabric UK User Group (January 16, 2025) and has been presented to various organizations in the Nordics to highlight Fabric's current automation capabilities. Additionally, it will be featured as an official accelerator for one of the leading banks in the Netherlands in January 2025.

Target Audience: PowerShell enthusiasts, data professionals, and technical teams exploring automation and Microsoft Fabric.
Preferred Duration: 1 hour, including live demonstrations and interactive discussions.

SQL Meets Fabric: Migrate and version-control your SQL workloads

Migrating SQL databases to Microsoft Fabric can seem daunting, especially when organizations have invested years into finely tuned schemas, stored procedures, and workflows. However, the process doesn’t need to be a reinvention. By leveraging well-established SQL techniques such as Database Projects (DACPACs), backup files (BACPACs) or brand new features like Mirrored databases, you can seamlessly migrate your databases into Fabric while maintaining data integrity and compatibility with new features.

This session explores practical techniques to migrate SQL databases to Fabric using these tools, enabling you to make the most of Fabric’s ecosystem without discarding your existing SQL investments.

💡 What You'll Learn:
1. How Database Projects to version-control schemas works in Fabric.
2. The difference between DACPACs and BACPACs, and when to use each.
3. Step-by-step demonstration of migrating schema and data into Fabric SQL Databases, using Azure DevOps pipelines to automate deployment workflows.
4. Using Mirrored Azure Databases in Fabric as alternative to migration

By leveraging tools like Azure Data Studio, Database Projects and Deployment pipelines, migrating to Fabric SQL Databases becomes a smooth, predictable process. These techniques allow you to preserve years of SQL investments while unlocking the power of Fabric’s integrated data and AI services.

Whether you're modernizing legacy databases or adopting Fabric for the first time, these approaches provide a clear path forward.

Session Duration: Designed as a 1-hour session.
Target Audience: Developers, DBAs, and Data Engineers interested in modernizing SQL workloads and exploring Microsoft Fabric's capabilities.
Technical Requirements: Basic familiarity with SQL databases, Database Projects, and DevOps pipelines is recommended.
Additional Resources: Attendees can explore the companion article for this session, SQL Meets Fabric: Migrate and Version-Control Your SQL Workloads, available on my blog: https://www.techtacofriday.com/sql-meets-fabric-migrate-and-version-control-your-sql-workloads/.

Streamlining Databricks: CI/CD your Notebooks with DevOps Pipelines and orchestrate via Data Factory

Integrating Azure Databricks with Azure Data Factory (ADF) allows you to seamlessly orchestrate data workflows and execute Databricks notebooks within your data pipelines, this integration empowers you to leverage the strengths of both, while Databricks provides scalable analytics and machine learning capabilities, ADF complements this by enabling you to schedule, trigger, and manage these data movement and transformations.

In this session I'll show you how to 1) Provision your Workspace infrastructure with BICEP, 2) Configure SCIM provisioning connector and use Azure's Entra ID security groups to separate users from administrators, 3) deploy your Notebooks across environments with DevOps YAML Pipelines and 4) Orchestrate your Notebooks via Azure Data Factory.