Transform your data management with Microsoft Fabric and Purview

95% of businesses say that managing unstructured data is a problem for their business. On top of this, nearly half (45%) of organisations consider their data governance ineffective, showing a clear need for improvements.

Enter Microsoft Purview and Fabric, a powerful combination that transforms the way organisations handle their data ecosystem. Microsoft Purview serves as a data governance service that aids businesses in discovering and governing all their data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. On the other hand, Microsoft Fabric provides a unified data platform that enables seamless data integration, processing, and analytics. Together, Purview and Fabric offer comprehensive solutions that not only enhance data visibility and control but also empower organisations to make informed decisions based on reliable and well-managed data.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the functionalities of these tools, the key benefits, and how to implement them in your organisation to help reshape your data management landscape.

The role of Microsoft Fabric in data integration

Microsoft Fabric is an essential tool for streamlining your company’s data integration. It offers a unified platform for managing the entire lifecycle of your data, from its creation to its eventual retirement.

Key functionalities include:

• Unified Data Platform: Fabric combines various data-focused Microsoft services — such as Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI — into a single powerful platform, removing the need to switch between different tools throughout the data management process.
• Seamless Data Ingestion: Fabric allows you to import structured and unstructured data from a wide variety of sources such as files and logs, databases, and even real-time data from IoT devices. This ensures you can collect all types of relevant data into Fabric for analysis.
• Robust Data Transformation and ETL: Fabric’s ETL (Extract, Transformation, Load) capabilities effectively handle any data preparation task necessary, offering tools such as intricate data workflows, user-friendly dataflow processes, and custom transformations using Python or R.

Microsoft Fabric simplifies data integration by providing a centralised platform for data ingestion, storage, and transformation. It also provides valuable insights from your data, enabling your organisation to benefit from informed decision making.

Understanding Microsoft Purview for data governance

Microsoft Purview serves as a cutting-edge data governance service that enables organisations to discover, map, and govern their data assets across various environments, including hybrid and multi-cloud setups. By providing a unified view of data and its lineage, Microsoft Purview enhances data visibility, promotes compliance with regulations, and facilitates informed decision-making.

Key functionalities include:

• Data Discovery: Purview automatically identifies and classifies data assets. It does so by scanning your data landscape, including data stored in the cloud, on-premises, and in SaaS applications.
• Data Cataloguing: Purview creates a metadata complete catalogue of all your data, which serves as a single information hub for all users to easily access.
• Data Lineage: By tracking data movement throughout your systems, Purview helps you understand how data is created, transformed, and used throughout your business.
• Data Classification: Purview lets you identify, classify, and apply security measures to all sensitive data, strengthening your security posture.
• Data Access Control: Purview lets you control who can access what data, making sure that nobody can access your most sensitive data without authorisation.
• Data Sharing: Purview allows for private and secure sharing of data in or between businesses, which eliminates the need for unnecessary data duplication.

This combined platform makes data governance a breeze, Microsoft Purview empowering businesses to efficiently manage and leverage their data assets while ensuring security and compliance standards are met.

Key benefits of Microsoft Fabric and Purview

Both of these services work perfectly together as a dynamic data management duo. Fabric provides the foundation by gathering and preparing your data for analysis, and Purview secures the data, ensuring it is classified, protected, and used responsibly.

Key organisational benefits of using these tools together include:

• Streamlined Operations: The integration of Fabric and Purview simplifies data processes, providing a unified platform for data integration, processing, governance, and compliance.
• Enhanced Visibility: Organisations gain a comprehensive view of their data landscape, including lineage, quality, and usage, fostering transparency and informed decision-making.
• Robust Governance: Purview enhances data governance by ensuring data is managed securely, compliant with regulations, and aligned with organisational policies.
• Efficient Integration: Fabric's integration capabilities connect data sources seamlessly, while Purview tracks metadata and lineage information accurately.
• Data Quality Assurance: The collaboration between Fabric and Purview maintains data quality standards and consistency, mitigating data silos and upholding data accuracy.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Businesses can scale their data operations effectively and adapt to changing data needs using Fabric and Purview's combined capabilities.
• Informed Decision-Making: Leveraging insights from Purview's governance and Fabric's analytics empowers organisations to make data-driven decisions with confidence.

By leveraging the strengths of Fabric's unified data platform and Purview's advanced governance features, businesses can achieve a seamless and effective data management ecosystem that drives efficiency, compliance, and strategic insights, ultimately leading to business success.

How to get started

Organisations can implement Microsoft Fabric and Purview effectively by following these steps:

1. Determine the specific areas of data management and governance that need improvement and how these tools can address those needs.
2. Conduct a comprehensive assessment of your current data architecture, including sources, formats, and quality. Identify key data assets, potential gaps, and areas of data governance concern.
3. Develop an implementation strategy – consider factors such as data volumes, regulatory compliance needs, integration complexities, and user training.
4. Begin with a pilot phase with a small subset of data and users, test functionalities, validate configurations, and gather feedback.
5. Start onboarding relevant data into Fabric, use Purview to discover, classify, and map data assets across the organisation.
6. Define data governance policies, access controls, and compliance guidelines within Purview. Ensure that data classification, lineage tracking, and metadata management align with organisational standards and regulatory requirements.
7. Provide training and change management strategies to ensure smooth adoption of the new tools and processes across departments.
8. Regularly monitor the performance of Fabric and Purview, tracking data quality, governance compliance, and user feedback.

By focusing on these steps businesses can effectively initiate the implementation of Microsoft Fabric and Purview, setting the stage for improved data management, governance, and decision-making capabilities.

OneAdvanced's relationship with Microsoft goes back over 30 years, over which our?Modern Workplace?experts have helped numerous organisations digitally transform and embrace a better way of working. If you need help with data management but don’t know where to start,?reach out to us?today.