Learn Microsoft Fabric
Ordered, guided paths — each step builds on the last, and every claim is grounded in cited sources. Looking for architecture patterns instead? Browse the architecture gallery →
Fabric Foundations
A guided first pass across the whole platform -- what each workload is for and how they fit together, before going deep on any one of them.
For: New to Microsoft Fabric, or evaluating the platform for the first time.
- Platform & Governance in Microsoft FabricArticle
- Storage & OneLake in Microsoft FabricArticle
- Data Engineering & Integration in Microsoft FabricArticle
- Warehousing & SQL in Microsoft FabricArticle
- BI & Semantic Models in Microsoft FabricArticle
- Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft FabricArticle
- AI & APIs in Microsoft FabricArticle
Spark on Fabric
From your first Spark session to Native Execution Engine internals and the Delta write path.
For: Data engineers writing or tuning Spark notebooks on Fabric.
- The Spark engine in Microsoft Fabric — BeginnerLesson~12 min · You can start a Spark notebook in Fabric, reason about which pool it's running on, and write Delta tables with basic optimization settings applied.
- Architecting Spark Workloads in Microsoft FabricLesson~13 min · You can architect a Spark workload in Fabric with session-startup latency, write-path cost, and orchestration placement as explicit, justified design decisions.
- Spark Engine Internals in Microsoft Fabric: Native Execution, Compute Topology, and the Write PathLesson~18 min · You can explain, mechanism by mechanism, why a given Spark job in Fabric is fast or slow — from NEE acceleration down to the Delta write path — without guessing.
- Apache Spark in Microsoft Fabric: A Practitioner's Guide to Compute, Delta Writes, and the Native Execution EngineArticle
Lakehouse & Delta Tables
How Delta tables work in a Fabric Lakehouse, from your first table to storage internals and maintenance mechanics.
For: Data engineers designing or maintaining Lakehouse tables.
- Delta tables in Fabric — BeginnerLesson~12 min · You can explain why one Delta table is readable from Spark, SQL, and Power BI without a separate copy, and avoid the most common early mistakes.
- Delta Tables in Microsoft Fabric: Architecting for Multi-Engine AccessLesson~14 min · You can architect a lakehouse table so it stays readable and performant across Spark, SQL, and Power BI, and explain the role Delta's transaction log plays in that guarantee.
- Delta Tables in Microsoft Fabric: Storage Internals, V-Order, and Maintenance MechanicsLesson~18 min · You can reason about Delta table performance from the transaction log outward — why a query skips files, why V-Order helps a given consumer, and what a deletion vector actually changes at read time.
- Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse: Architecture, SQL Analytics, and Delta OptimizationArticle
dbt on Fabric Warehouse
Running dbt against Fabric, from your first model to adapter mechanics and incremental-run cost.
For: Analytics engineers adopting dbt on Fabric Warehouse or Lakehouse.
- dbt with Microsoft Fabric — Beginner: models, the adapter, and your first runLesson~12 min · You can explain what dbt adds on top of Fabric's built-in transformation tools, and set up and run a dbt project against a Fabric Warehouse.
- dbt with Microsoft Fabric — Intermediate: auth, CI/CD, orchestration, and tool placementLesson~15 min · You can set up a CI/CD-ready dbt project against Fabric Warehouse, orchestrate it, and justify choosing dbt over Fabric's built-in transformation tools for a given workload.
- dbt with Microsoft Fabric — Expert: adapter mechanics, incremental costs, and failure modesLesson~15 min · You can reason about the cost and failure modes of a dbt-fabric incremental run from first principles, and know which adapter behaviors are undocumented rather than guess at them.
- Fabric Data Warehouse: Architecture, Caching, GPU Acceleration, and Best PracticesArticle
Fabric IQ & the Ontology Layer
What the ontology item is, how to architect one, and its open internals.
For: Architects and engineers building a shared semantic layer for AI agents.
- Fabric IQ and the Ontology Item — BeginnerLesson~12 min · You can explain what Fabric IQ adds on top of a plain schema-and-prompt approach to AI agents, and name its two anchor items.
- Fabric IQ Ontology Architecture — IntermediateLesson~13 min · You can architect an ontology layer for a real domain and explain why grounding an agent in it produces more reliable answers than schema-and-prompt alone.
- Fabric IQ Mechanics and Open Internals — ExpertLesson~12 min · You know exactly which Fabric IQ claims are Microsoft-documented, which are field-reported only, and which remain genuinely undocumented — and you won't conflate the three.
- Fabric IQ: Giving AI Agents a Shared Business VocabularyArticle