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Understanding Microsoft Fabric Capacity: Workspaces, Licensing, and Performance Optimization



 Fabric Capacity:

Definition: A Fabric capacity is essentially a pool of compute and storage resources to execute workloads. These capacities are required for running Microsoft Fabric features like reports, data pipelines, and notebooks.

Azure-Based Capacities: These capacities are managed under an Azure subscription. Capacities can be created via the Azure portal, offering flexibility in managing resources and costs.

Sizes: Capacities come in various sizes, from smaller capacities like F2 for experimentation to larger capacities like F64, which align with Power BI Premium features. Pricing varies by capacity size, geography, and currency.

Fabric Workspaces:


Definition: Workspaces act as logical containers where projects, workloads, and items like datasets, reports, and pipelines are organized.

Assignment to Capacity: Each workspace must be assigned to a specific capacity. Without this assignment, items in the workspace cannot execute.

Licensing Model:


Pay-As-You-Go (F License): The "pay-as-you-go" model allows you to pay for capacity usage based on consumption. This model provides flexibility, enabling you to scale resources up or down or pause capacity when not in use.

Yearly Licensing Model: This includes Power BI Premium, where capacities are pre-purchased for a fixed term. This model doesn't allow scaling or pausing but may offer cost benefits for consistent usage.

Smoothing and Bursting:


Smoothing: Ensures that workloads are distributed evenly over time to avoid spikes in capacity usage. Interactive tasks are smoothed over minutes, while large background jobs are smoothed over 24 hours.

Bursting: Allows temporary capacity increases for heavy workloads without immediate capacity resizing. This ensures critical tasks complete successfully without hitting capacity limits.

  • Smoothing spreads out workloads over time to avoid capacity spikes.
  • Bursting temporarily increases capacity for resource-intensive tasks to ensure they complete without hitting limits.

Storage and Additional Costs:


Storage Costs: In addition to compute, organizations are charged for storage (e.g., data lake storage costs).

User Licenses: Users require appropriate licenses:

For consuming reports: Power BI Free or Pro licenses.

For creating reports or items in Fabric: Power BI Pro licenses.


Basic Understanding

What is the purpose of assigning a Fabric workspace to a capacity, and what happens if it is not assigned?

  Can multiple workspaces share a single Fabric capacity? What are the benefits of this approach?

Licensing and Billing

How does the "Pay-As-You-Go" licensing model differ from the yearly licensing model in Microsoft Fabric?

What is the advantage of pausing a capacity in the pay-as-you-go model, and how does it reduce costs?

Azure Integration

How does managing Fabric capacities under Azure subscriptions benefit organizations in terms of cost management and scalability?

If a heavy task exceeds the available Fabric capacity, how does the "bursting" mechanism ensure its completion?

Performance Optimization

Explain the concept of "smoothing" in Fabric workloads. How does it help optimize resource usage?

How would you monitor and resize a Fabric capacity to handle increasing workloads?

Governance and Security

How does associating capacities with Azure subscriptions improve governance and billing transparency?

What considerations should be made when deciding on the size of a Fabric capacity for an organization?

Advanced Scenarios

Describe a scenario where resizing or pausing a Fabric capacity might be necessary.

How does the licensing requirement differ between small and large Fabric capacities when consuming Power BI reports?

Storage and Data

Apart from compute capacity, what additional costs must be considered when using Fabric?

How do storage costs for Fabric vary, and what pricing model is used for data storage?











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