The Fabric Community Conference 2025 (FabCon) was an exciting showcase of Microsoft’s continued innovation in data technology, and JourneyTeam was thrilled to attend and honored to present this year. Over the course of the event, Microsoft reinforced its commitment to making Fabric the centerpiece of its data platform strategy, giving businesses even more powerful tools to manage data at scale and generate meaningful insights.
Today, Microsoft Fabric has grown into a unified, AI-powered data ecosystem trusted by over 19,000 organizations, including 74 percent of Fortune 500 companies, to modernize the way they store, process, and secure data.
Reinventing the Data Landscape
Fabric is Microsoft’s holistic data platform that combines Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Power BI, providing a unified method for data collection, transformation, analysis and visualization. Companies no longer have to juggle disparate systems or spend extra resources maintaining traditional, siloed data pipelines.
At FabCon 2025, Microsoft announced an extensive list of Fabric enhancements that strengthen the platform and help organizations better analyze, plan, and act on their data. To illustrate that commitment, conference sessions reinforced that Fabric is continually evolving and inspiring businesses to rethink analytics, automate decision-making, and push the boundaries of what’s possible in data management.
JourneyTeam Presents
But Microsoft Fabric’s journey isn’t a solo performance; it thrives on innovative and data-savvy partners like JourneyTeam. Our seasoned Microsoft Fabric and Power BI experts presented two sessions at FabCon 2025, highlighting how Fabric—combined with the right strategy—can transform the way your business harnesses data.
The Star Schema Playbook: Scaling Beyond Power Query Using Microsoft Fabric
JourneyTeam’s Data Engineering Manager Jason Fife shared his real-world insights implementing Fabric lakehouse and warehouse solutions using star schema, a data-modeling approach that maximizes query performance, simplifies analytics, and enhances overall efficiency.
Star schema is highly recommended when using Microsoft Fabric’s Lakehouse, Warehouse, or Power BI datasets because it simplify queries, speeds up Power BI dashboards from minutes to seconds, and dramatically improves user experience and adoption.
Strategies for Estimating Fabric Capacity Expense
With Fabric, companies have licensing choices for sourcing and storing data, and those choices impact the duration and consumption of Fabric capacity. That means that setting capacity parameters is critically important but can be equally as difficult.
JourneyTeam experts Nathan Giullian & Jim Hill shared eye opening best practices for estimating fabric capacity expenses, providing insights into key factors like workload patterns, resource utilization, and scaling considerations. Some of their best advice included starting with low capacity and moving from pay-as-you-go to reserved licensing when you are confident in your usage levels.
Unraveling Fabric and Power BI SKU Changes
One overarching concern we heard from FabCon attendees was related to Microsoft consolidating Fabric purchase options and retiring the Power BI Premium per capacity SKUs. What this really means is that customers need to migrate from their existing Power BI Premium capacity SKUs to new Fabric capacity SKUs when their Enterprise Agreement comes up for renewal.
But migrating workspaces can be complicated; many customers have hundreds or thousands of workspaces in their Power BI Premium capacities. These workspaces all must be migrated, and the Power BI capacities retired. That said, it’s a great time to consult your partner to review your existing licenses and capacity and set up a roadmap to migrate your Power BI licenses if necessary.
JourneyTeam can support a smooth transition to Fabric, working with you to develop a roadmap that aligns licensing to your business goals. We’ll outline use cases where Fabric has the potential to significantly impact your organization and walk you through an investment expectation, ROI analysis, and easy-to-implement plans.
Notes:
- Companies have 90 days to access their data in Power BI while transitioning, and free Power BI Premium capacity for the first 30 days after the end of the previous subscription.
- Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium per user (PPU) are not impacted by the change.
Fabric Features and Enhancements
Microsoft is always looking for the biggest platform to announce large-scale features and updates, and FabCon had it’s share. Let’s check out a few:
OneLake Security: A Breakthrough in Data Protection
OneLake Security received major attention for its ability to centralize security management, allowing organizations to define data access policies once and automatically enforce them across every data engine, from SQL analytics endpoints to Power BI visualizations. Binding policies directly to the data itself makes it easier for the consumer and enforces security across a broad range of scenarios.
OneLake Security should turn data access management into a straightforward process, significantly improving compliance and protection of sensitive information.
The Rise of Fabric Data Agents
With Fabric AI agents, Microsoft is pushing data agents that offer a level of analytics previously accessible only through extensive manual effort. These agents operate autonomously but can also work collaboratively.
For example, one agent might analyze financial reports while another confirms compliance and a third compiles executive summaries. By leveraging large language models (LLMs), natural language processing, automation, and reasoning capabilities, these agents can collectively deliver more precise workflow actions and recommendations.
Copilot for Everyone
Microsoft has made the strategic decision to expand access to Copilot, its AI-driven analytics assistant, across all paid Fabric SKUs. The democratization of Copilot within Fabric represents a significant step toward accessible, scalable, and secure data analytics for businesses of all sizes.
Copilot can provide faster responses to analytical queries and discover previously unnoticed data patterns. And IT professionals gain streamlined data management, reduced overhead, and robust automation capabilities.
Seamlessly Migrating Data to Fabric
Microsoft also introduced a built-in migration experience to simplify the transition for Azure Synapse Analytics users. Unlike Synapse Analytics, Fabric provides integrated workloads—covering ingestion, transformation, analytics, and visualization—eliminating the need to provision multiple Azure resources.
The migration assistant offers guided support for both data and code transfers without the complexities traditionally associated with such processes. This approach should accelerate the construction and testing and reduce migration hurdles.
What You Should Remember
Technology alone does not drive transformation; you need an integrated strategy, and the path is different for every business. JourneyTeam’s SmartStart assessment is designed to analyze your current data environment, business needs and goals to ensure you have a data foundation designed for long-term growth. You’ll get a clear, actionable roadmap to optimize your investment and accelerate time-to-value.
At JourneyTeam, we go beyond standard BI implementations to provide end-to-end data strategy consulting. As a certified Microsoft partner with specializations in Azure Data & AI, we help you navigate your data journey, ensuring you implement the right solution to maximize Fabric and Power BI capabilities.
