Microsoft Fabric Cheat Sheet

Updated 2026-04-29

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Microsoft Fabric is a unified, end-to-end analytics platform that combines data integration, engineering, warehousing, science, real-time intelligence, and business intelligence into a single SaaS offering. Built on OneLake — a centralized data lake storing all data in open Delta/Parquet format — Fabric eliminates data silos and enables seamless collaboration across teams. The platform uses a capacity-based pricing model measured in Compute Units (CUs) purchased as F-SKUs, where workloads draw from a shared pool. As of 2026, Fabric serves over 31,000 customers and has introduced major additions including SQL Database in Fabric, Materialized Lake Views, Fabric IQ, OneLake Security, and an MCP Server integration — understanding these alongside the foundational item types is essential for building scalable, governed data solutions.

What This Cheat Sheet Covers

This topic spans 15 focused tables and 115 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.

Table 1: Core Platform ComponentsTable 2: Data Storage & IntegrationTable 3: Data Engineering WorkloadsTable 4: Data Pipelines & OrchestrationTable 5: Real-Time IntelligenceTable 6: Power BI IntegrationTable 7: Data Science & AITable 8: Governance & SecurityTable 9: Capacity ManagementTable 10: Development & CI/CDTable 11: Item Types ReferenceTable 12: Pricing & LicensingTable 13: Advanced FeaturesTable 14: Query Languages & ToolsTable 15: Best Practices & Patterns

Table 1: Core Platform Components

Component	Example	Description
OneLake	All workspaces store data in `OneLake/MyWorkspace/MyLakehouse/`	• Single unified data lake for all Fabric data • automatically provisioned with every tenant • stores data in open Delta Parquet format • supports ADLS Gen2 APIs.
Workspace	`Sales Analytics Workspace`	• Logical container for Fabric items (lakehouses, pipelines, reports) • assigned to a capacity • supports role-based access (Admin, Member, Contributor, Viewer).
Capacity	F64 SKU = 64 CUs	• Compute and storage pool purchased as SKUs (F2–F2048) • measured in Capacity Units • supports pay-as-you-go or reserved pricing • workloads consume CUs dynamically.
Lakehouse	Bronze/Silver/Gold lakehouse layers	• Combines data lake flexibility with warehouse querying • stores structured/unstructured data in Delta format • includes automatic SQL analytics endpoint.
Warehouse	Enterprise data warehouse	• Fully managed T-SQL engine for structured analytics • optimized for BI reporting • supports stored procedures, views, security.

Table 1: Core Platform Components

Component	Example	Description
OneLake	All workspaces store data in `OneLake/MyWorkspace/MyLakehouse/`	• Single unified data lake for all Fabric data • automatically provisioned with every tenant • stores data in open Delta Parquet format • supports ADLS Gen2 APIs.
Workspace	`Sales Analytics Workspace`	• Logical container for Fabric items (lakehouses, pipelines, reports) • assigned to a capacity • supports role-based access (Admin, Member, Contributor, Viewer).
Capacity	F64 SKU = 64 CUs	• Compute and storage pool purchased as SKUs (F2–F2048) • measured in Capacity Units • supports pay-as-you-go or reserved pricing • workloads consume CUs dynamically.
Lakehouse	Bronze/Silver/Gold lakehouse layers	• Combines data lake flexibility with warehouse querying • stores structured/unstructured data in Delta format • includes automatic SQL analytics endpoint.
Warehouse	Enterprise data warehouse	• Fully managed T-SQL engine for structured analytics • optimized for BI reporting • supports stored procedures, views, security.