Microsoft has announced a major update for Fabric, its unified platform for data analytics, at its Build 2024 conference. The update introduces a new workload called Real-Time Intelligence, which allows enterprises to ingest, analyze, and take actions on real-time data streams. This capability will enable teams to make informed decisions in the fast-paced business environment by providing “up-to-the-minute” insights.
Real-Time Intelligence is an end-to-end experience that eliminates the need to first land the data before handling it. With this new offering, users can ingest streaming data from Microsoft’s sources and third-party cloud providers using out-of-the-box connectors. They can then transform the streams, query them for instant visual insights, and set up actions based on specific events. For example, users can issue an alert when a particular machine starts overheating.
The Real-Time Intelligence workload is underpinned by a dedicated Real-Time Hub, which serves as a single location to discover, manage, and consume all the data in motion. This includes IoT sensor data, weblogs, and clickstreams. Users can easily transform and route events flowing through the Real-Time Hub to any Fabric data store and create new streams that can be discovered and consumed.
Microsoft has already begun testing Real-Time Intelligence with companies such as One NZ and Elcome. The company hopes that this offering will power critical use cases in various industries, such as route optimization in transportation and logistics, grid monitoring in energy and utilities, predictive maintenance in manufacturing, and inventory management in retail.
In addition to Real-Time Intelligence, Microsoft is launching a Fabric workload development kit in preview. This kit allows developers to create and launch applications as native workloads within the Fabric platform. The company also plans to launch a workload hub in the coming months to help developers discover, add, and manage custom workloads without leaving the Fabric environment. Several organizations, including Informatica, Teradata, Neo4j, and SAS, are already developing for Fabric.
Microsoft is also introducing other updates for Fabric. It is previewing Data workflows in the Data Factory module, allowing users to define Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG) files for complex data workflow orchestration. The company is expanding OneLake shortcuts to connect to data from on-premises and network-restricted sources and making Copilot for Fabric generally available in the Power BI module. Additionally, Microsoft is testing a new AI-powered Q&A feature called AI skills, which allows users to ask direct questions about their data without any configuration.
Overall, these updates to Fabric enhance the platform’s capabilities and provide users with a seamless and efficient way to combine all their data and tools to gain valuable insights. Real-Time Intelligence enables teams to make better decisions based on real-time data, improving their efficiency and performance in the fast-paced business environment. The new workload development kit and workload hub empower developers to create custom applications within Fabric, expanding its functionality and versatility. With these updates, Microsoft continues to strengthen its position as a leader in the data analytics space.