Fabric Sprawl - Techniques to Optimize Your Fabric Capacity

#fabcon2026 #session #learning #microsoft #fabcon2026-session

Description

Learn how to address a sprawling Fabric environment with ungoverned items across multiple workspaces and capacities. Extend FUAM to gain valuable insights that drive decision-making and backlog prioritization. Design the right balance between autonomy and security in your Fabric environment to deliver an optimal experience for both end users and developers.

Key Takeaways

FUAM & its extensions
Approach and strategies
An open-source accelerator in
Data collection of various Fabric
Stores in Fabric Lakehouse.
Easily installed and extendable.
Add Personal Workspace Data

My Notes

Action Items

Resources & Links

Slides

📥 Download Slides

Fabric Sprawl
Curtis Stallings
Senior Architect, Baker Tilly US
GitHub - Curts0
Marcus Radue
Senior Architect, Baker Tilly US
https://mrdata.pro
All code shown today
is available on GitHub!
Session Topics
•What is Fabric Sprawl?
•What are the symptoms?
•What are the benefits of
controlling Fabric Sprawl?
•How do you solve for Fabric
Sprawl?
Know Remove Improve
• Know
• FUAM & its extensions
• Remove
• Approach and strategies
• Improve
•
•
•
•
Artifact consolidation
Security cleanup
CICD standardization
Monitor
What is Fabric Sprawl?
The uncontrolled growth of Fabric artifacts.
What does Fabric Sprawl look like in your Org?
Some look
like this…
Or this…
Or this…
Or this.
Sprawl Symptoms
Duplication of data assets
Accuracy issues
Capacity peaking
It could be worse! Better to have
sprawl inside of Fabric vs. outside…
Security violations
Redundant build efforts
Benefits of Sprawl Removal
Reduce Fabric Spend
Repurpose Fabric
Compute
Resource
Optimization
Streamline Data
Governance
Fabric Sprawl Resolution
Know
Remove
Improve
Know
FUAM - Fabric Unified Admin Monitoring
• An open-source accelerator in
Microsoft's GitHub repository.
• Completely Fabric.
• Data collection of various Fabric
APIs.
• Stores in Fabric Lakehouse.
• Easily installed and extendable.
Different Ways to Extend FUAM
• Add Personal Workspace Data
• Include Semantic Model Metadata
• Perform Lineage Analysis on Fabric
Items
See FUAM documentation on
updating.
Modifications to Existing FUAM
Pipelines & Tenant Setting Changes
Semantic Model
Metadata Example:

Read FUAM files from
API collection into
Dataframes
Write as delta tables
Build direct lake
semantic model
View details of all
semantic models
across your entire
tenant.
Lineage Analysis
For each fabric item
type locate the parent
and child connections
in FUAM data.
Conform data into
matching Dataframe
schema.
Let Networkx Python
package do the hard
work and find all the
possible paths and
connections.
Build semantic model
to look at data.
Perform analysis.
Remove
Why is Remove second?
Removal Strategies

Objects identified and added to the
backlog
• Backlog prioritized
Users notified (Email, Teams, Office
Hours)
Access removed
• Monitor feedback
Archive objects
• Semantic Link Labs script
Delete objects
Semantic Link Labs
combined with data
collected by FUAM allows
for easy automated
archiving.
Improve
Fabric Sprawl Prevention
Artifact
Consolidation
Security
Cleanup
CI/CD
Implementation
Monitor
Artifact Consolidation
Collaborate with Data Governance
Utilize Fabric Tags for archival process
Promote and Certify content through Fabric Endorsements
Domain Based Governance
• Identify data governance roles
• Executive Sponsor, Domain Owners, Data Owners,
Data Stewards
• Select a data governance platform
• Microsoft Purview
• Scan, collect, curate, and monitor data assets
Endorsements
• Leverage Fabric endorsement labels to make
data trust visible and actionable
• Business domain self-service data assets are
promoted
• IT created data assets are certified
• “Golden” record data assets are labeled master
data
• Align endorsement with data governance
processes
Security Group Cleanup
Fabric Permission Levels
Workspace Permissions
• Evaluate Fabric permissions for coarse-grain
workspace access
•
•
•
•
• Evaluate item permissions for coarse-grain item
access
• Evaluate OneLake RBAC permissions for finegrain folder access
Admin
Contributor
Member
Viewer
Item Permissions
(Permission options vary per item)
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Consider trusted workspace access and private
endpoints for increased network security
Semantic model
Warehouse
Data Factory
Lakehouse
Data science
Real-Time Intelligence
OneLake Permissions
(Data Access Roles)
• RBAC model
Fabric as a Product
Tighter Controls
Push down content
Reporting platforms
Certified
Push up content
VS Code + Git Integration
Department
Knowledge Management
Information sharing
Promoted
Team
Business developed and maintained
Enterprise
More creators, fewer consumers
Permanent record
Subject to compliance
Change Management
Fewer creators, more consumers
IT – developed and maintained
Fabric Platform
Individual
Personal / private views
Data science exploration
Looser Controls
CICD Implementation
Enterprise IT
Citizen Developer
Semantic Model CICD Example
Audit & Monitor
• Fabric Unified Admin Monitoring (FUAM)
• Easy install
• Extend functionality
• Analyze and create actionable insights
• Fabric Workspace Monitoring
• High-cost entry point (Fabric CUs)
• Low development time
• Capture high granularity logging events
• Log Analytics
• Low-cost entry point
• Higher development time
• Capture high granularity logging events
Azure Log Analytics
“How can I keep track of the overall performance of all these visuals when so many users are building out their own content?”
Azure Log Analytics
“I want to remove this column, is it being used?”
Azure Log Analytics
“Did I refresh a blank partition? How long are my partitions taking to refresh?”
Azure Log Analytics
“My processing is slow; how does my encoding look?”
Azure Log Analytics
“I got 99 problems, and a dupe key error is definitely one. Can I see the history of my processing errors?”
Resources
• FUAM: fabric-toolbox/monitoring/fabric-unified-admin-monitoring at main · microsoft/fabric-toolbox
• Code resources: GitHub - Curts0
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The mic is all yours.
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