Azure Data and Power BI News (July 2023)

Ah, July... Sun, beach, summer holidays (for me - part 1). Who would be passionate about technology there in such a beautiful time!? And yet, I still sit in front of the screen with flushed face, reading, watching and testing what is happening in Microsoft data technologies. Here is my list of content read and watched last month.

Microsoft

• Tons of great updates to Microsoft Fabric in July! First, we got a nice update to the Data Factory experience of Fabric - see Data Factory June 2023 Monthly Update . You will find there: updates to Power Query editor - including a new modern data connectivity and discovery experience with features like templates and file upload option (to OneDrive), new activities (Webhook, Web, Fail), several productivity improvements and more.
• Second, for Data Warehouse experience in Fabric we got Table Clone in warehouse (zero copy cloning) and Data Warehouse sharing (read access for downstream users).

• Finally, for Data Engineering experience - specifically, for lakehouse data item - we got Lakehouse Sharing and Access Permission Management (similar as for warehouses - read access for downstream users).
• By the way, have you noticed that Data Activator, the seventh experience of Microsoft Fabric (for automatically taking actions when patterns or conditions are detected in changing data) is available in Public Preview? See the documentation on GitHub: microsoft/dataActivator . If you want to discuss your findings related to this new experience, join the Data Activator community .
• Only yesterday, we got a really cool blog post on how to use Data Science experience of Fabric, notebooks and SynapseML library (yeah, that's right, it's not gone anywhere!) to to leverage LLMs (Azure OpenAI service) to perform question and answer (Q&A) tasks on any PDF document.
• An important information for all of you testing Microsoft Fabric - the free preview of Fabric workloads has just been extended to October 1st, 2023.
• Also, do not miss July Fabric Espresso videos from Stijn Wynants , Estera Kot, PhD , Bogdan Crivat and the Espresso team: a new feature Table clone in Warehouse within Microsoft Fabric, three videos for data engineers - Top Microsoft Fabric Features that Every Data Engineer Should Know , Data Engineer perspective on loading data for Fabric: Uploads, Data Flows, Copy Tool or Shortcuts? , Data Engineer’s perspective on storing data in Fabric: Lakehouse or Warehouse? - and the first episode of a mini-series "Performance at Scale" explaining internals of how a data warehouse in Fabric works - Performance at Scale with Microsoft Fabric: Query Processing! .

• Speaking about videos... #MVPBuzz !!! In the brand-new video of the MVP Series , 4 (!!!) MVPs: Shabnam Watson , Rishi Sapra ACA, MCT, Microsoft MVP , Andy Cutler and Kevin Arnold present a nice end-to-end demo of Microsoft Fabric! From data to Power BI report. You can't miss it!

• Let's switch to Power BI. The July update came with several nice new features and improvements. My favorites: datasets in Power BI Mobile Apps (you can refresh a dataset while on the go!), customizable Pane Switcher , updates to the line chart (smoothing and leader lines), relationship validation in model editor in the service (getting closer to feature parity with Power BI Desktop).
• Nice update for those of you having Enterprise Power BI deployments. In July we got the Public Preview of automatic replica synchronization for Dataset Scale-Out (so far you had to sync the replicas manually).
• But that's not all for Power BI in July! We also got low code authoring of paginated reports (in web browser!). Simply navigate to OneLake data hub, choose your dataset and then from its options select "Create paginated report".

• If you are as excited about Copilot in Power BI as I am, do not miss a 1-minute video Power BI Copilot from Olanrewaju Oyinbooke (Microsoft). Olanrewaju shows some magic done with Copilot Summary Visual in Power BI.
• Long time no see in this newsletter, Azure Machine Learning! In July package of updates we got: AML prompt flow (a dev tool for the entire lifecycle of AI apps powered by LLMs), discover Azure OpenAI Service models in the model catalog , and leverage LLaMA models in the model catalog (read more about the partnership of Microsoft and Meta: Microsoft and Meta expand their AI partnership with Llama 2 on Azure and Windows ).

Community

Did I tell you I love ?? the quantity and quality of content authored by the Microsoft Fabric and Power BI community? I really do! Here are some of the things I read/watched in July:

• Four blog posts by Chris Webb (Microsoft): Performance Testing Power BI Direct Lake Mode Datasets In Fabric (a practical guide for everyone willing to run performance tests on Fabric) and a nice 3-part series with self-explaining title Exploring Power BI Import Mode Throughput With Log Analytics, Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 .
• A 3-part interview recorded by Ian Griffiths (Microsoft MVP) and Ed Freeman , and presenting customer's ( Tom Peplow from Milliman) assessment of Microsoft Fabric: part 1 , part 2 , part 3 . Really insightful discussion.
• A blog post Transactions and Isolation Levels in Fabric Warehouse and a video Read Transactions and Isolation Levels in Fabric Warehouse by Andy Cutler (Microsoft MVP).
• Another 3-part (again?) blog series - Data Modeling for Mere Mortals - Part 1: What is Data Modeling?! | Part 2: Dimensional Modeling Fundamentals | Part 3: All we need is a Data Lakehouse?! - by Nikola Ilic (Microsoft MVP).
• Two blog posts for DevOps (KevOps?) fans - Migrate serverless SQL Pool objects to a Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse and Migrate dedicated SQL Pool objects to a Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse - by Kevin Chant (Microsoft MVP).
• Two super-useful blog posts for Power BI users working with visuals - Bar Charts in Power BI and Basic Line Charts in Power BI - by Kurt Buhler (Microsoft MVP). These blog posts come with free Power BI templates (shared in .pbip format)!
• Two blog posts - Migrating Existing ML Models to Fabric Data Science and Pre-Warming The Direct Lake Dataset For Import-Like Performance - by Sandeep Pawar .
• A blog post and a video Fabric Data Wrangler: A Tool for Data Scientist by Reza Rad (Microsoft MVP). Check out the whole Microsoft Fabric playlist by Reza.
• Several videos - Microsoft Fabric: How to append only Incremental data using Data Pipeline in Lakehouse , Microsoft Fabric: Load incremental data from local SQL server to Warehouse using on-premise Python , Microsoft Fabric OneLake Explorer| Append Data in CSV| Simplified Python code - by Amit Chandak (Microsoft MVP). Check out two playlists by Amit: Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft Fabric in Hindi .
• Several videos/live streams - Power BI CICD: The Ultimate Guide with Kristyna Huges | Live Tutorial and Q&A , Microsoft Fabric: How to Build a Lakehouse with Medallion Architecture , Fabric Fridays: Learn how to work with Microsoft Fabric - by Christopher Wagner, MBA, MVP (Microsoft MVP) and his guests. I enjoyed especially the Fabric Fridays series with Kevin Arnold (Microsoft MVP). Also, check out the whole Microsoft Fabric playlist by Christopher.
• Several videos/live streams - Exploring the SQL Endpoint - Let's Learn Fabric - ep.10 , Editing the Default Dataset - Let's Learn Fabric - ep.13 , Data Load using Pipelines - Let's Learn Fabric - ep.14. , SQL or OneLake - Ep.236 - Power BI Tips from the Real World - by PowerBI.tips guys: Michael Carlo , Seth Bauer and Tommy Puglia (all three Microsoft MVPs). Also, check out the whole Learn Fabric series by Mike and Tommy.
• A video Advancing Fabric - The Data Engineering Experience by Simon Whiteley and Craig Porteous (both Microsoft MVPs). Check out the whole Advancing Fabric series by Simon and Craig.
• Several videos - Microsoft Fabric: A Beginner's Guide for Power BI Users! , Dataverse for Power BI Users.?Unraveling the What, Why, and How!! , and Copilot Unleashed! Automate Power BI Dataset Refresh with Power Automate Copilot! - by Gaston Cruz and Alex Rostan (both Microsoft MVPs) aka Power Mates. You may be interested in checking out their Microsoft Fabric playlist as well.
• A video/live stream Power BI Desktop "Developer Mode" and Fabric Git Integration by Reid Havens ????♂? (Microsoft MVP) and Rui Romano (Microsoft). A must watch video for all Fabric and Power BI developers interested in effective collaboration of development teams.
• A video Dataflow Gen2 and Pipeline in Data Factory: A Game-Changing Duo in Fabric by Parvinder Chana (Microsoft MVP). Parv also has his Microsoft Fabric playlist which is worth checking out.
• A bit provoking in titles ;-) but very insightful blog posts - PowerBI Direct Lake misconception and Fabric Preview Pricing Misconception - by Mimoune Djouallah . Fair points and asks from the customer's point of view.

My little contribution to the community last month: Microsoft Fabric - Introduction and Quick Start (in Polish) - an online presentation for Data Community Poland Bydgoszcz and Wroclaw, OneLake - The Foundation of Microsoft Fabric - and online presentation for Toronto Data Professionals Community and Microsoft Fabric MVP Corner – July 2023 - my monthly blog post consolidating Microsoft Fabric authored by MVPs (tons of useful links there!).

You can find all the official announcements and updates on the?Azure Updates website ,?Microsoft Fabric blog ?and the?Power BI blog .

That's all folks! And now it's time for me to make the best possible use of a sunny weather - plan my August vacation break! As always, please, please, please - leave a comment about your own findings and learnings from last month. Stay tuned and until next reading!