How does Fabric handle governance and security?

Workspace roles, data-level security and sensitivity labels apply across every Fabric item, and Microsoft Purview adds cataloguing and end-to-end lineage. Because everything sits in OneLake, you secure it once rather than service by service.

Can Fabric support real‑time data?

Yes. Real-Time Intelligence ingests streaming data, such as IoT or application events, and makes it available for analysis and alerts within seconds, alongside your batch data.

How much does Fabric cost?

Fabric is billed by capacity size, starting from the small F2, plus storage. Reserved capacity costs noticeably less than pay-as-you-go. Below F64, people who view Power BI content still need Pro licences, so the right size depends on your users as well as your data. A Data Discovery project gives you a costed recommendation.

We're on Azure Synapse, do we need to move?

Not immediately. Synapse is still supported, but Microsoft's new features are going into Fabric, and Microsoft now provides tooling to migrate Synapse warehouses. We recommend planning the move on your own timetable rather than waiting for a deadline. A Data Discovery project with a Synapse focus gives you that plan.

Our Power BI Premium capacity is up for renewal, what should we do?

Premium capacity is being replaced by Fabric capacity at renewal. We'll size the right Fabric capacity from your actual usage and move your workspaces across.

Should we use a lakehouse or a warehouse?

Both are first-class in Fabric, and many platforms use both. The right choice depends on your team's skills and where you're starting from. Our lakehouse or warehouse article walks through the decision.

Microsoft Fabric Consultancy Services

One unified platform for all of your data

Whether you're migrating from Azure Synapse, SQL or Power BI Premium, starting from a blank canvas, or asking "do we need Fabric?" or "how do we get there?", our team will give you straight answers and help you build a plan you can deliver in clear steps.

Talk to our team

One unified platform for all of your data

What Is Microsoft Fabric?

Microsoft Fabric is a unified data platform, serving as a single data foundation for your entire organisation. Your data lands once in OneLake, gets cleaned and modelled once, and then serves everything that needs it: Power BI reports, Copilot and AI agents, automated workflows, and the operational apps your teams use every day. One capacity licence, one security model and one place to administer, instead of a collection of separately billed services and silos of duplicated data serving different workloads and audiences.

It has moved on a very long way since its initial release in 2023 as an analytics platform sitting alongside Power BI. Operational databases can now run directly inside Fabric, data can be mirrored straight from the systems you already use, alerts can trigger actions as your data changes, and Microsoft provides tooling to move existing warehouses across. Reporting is still where most organisations start, but it no longer has to be where the value stops.

Wondering how this fits with Azure Synapse? Synapse is still supported, but Microsoft's new investment is going into Fabric. Talk to us about your migration options.

How can PTR help?

Fabric Platform Review

Find out whether Fabric is right for you, what it will cost, and how to get there.

Migration to Fabric

Move from Synapse, Azure SQL, Data Factory or Power BI Premium in small, low-risk steps.

Lakehouse & Warehouse Design

A medallion lakehouse or a data warehouse, chosen for where you're starting from.

Data Integration

Get data in from your business systems with pipelines, mirroring and shortcuts.

AI & Data Agents

Ground Copilot and data agents in governed data, so their answers can be trusted.

Governance & Cost Control

Keep Fabric secure, well organised and on budget as more teams start using it.

Where do we start?

Fabric is a big toolbox, so even just deciding where to begin can be intimidating. Working out what it might then cost becomes even more daunting. We start by asking the right questions through one of our data discovery projects, to ensure we can give you frank and honest answers, with a clear recommendation and a costed plan for what comes next.

Is Fabric right for us?

Will Fabric suit your data, your team and your budget, or is there something simpler or more cost-effective that would serve you better?

How does Fabric fit with what we have?

Synapse, Databricks, Azure SQL or SQL Server: where Fabric works alongside your platform, and where it replaces it.

What will Fabric cost to run?

A capacity size and monthly cost based on your real workloads and users, not a list price.

Single Source of Truth

The objective of most analytics platforms since time immemorial, is to build an authoritative single source of truth that can provide the trusted repository of data from which all analytics workloads can reliably consume. That objective is more pertinent now than ever and applies not just to reporting and analysis, but to process automation, decision intelligence, AI and LLM-based digital assistants.

Grounding these systems in the data and context that enables them to read, interpret, understand, and act effectively and reliably means that source of truth is not just about the data, but also the metadata, and the business processes and logic by which that data moves and interacts.

How do we build it?

Land it once. Refine it predictably. Use it everywhere.

One copy of your data

Data is stored once in OneLake and reused everywhere, with no copies drifting out of sync.

Shortcuts and mirroring connect existing sources without duplicating them
Pipelines ingest data from business systems as an automated process
Eventstream receives and processes data in real-time from IoT devices

Refined in clear layers

Raw data is cleaned and shaped in clear stages, so every number can be traced back to its source.

Typically a medallion lakehouse (bronze, silver, gold), a warehouse layer, or both
Tests and lineage between each stage
Consistent methodology and repeatable patterns

Ready for reporting and AI

The same governed data feeds Power BI, Copilot, data agents and apps.

Direct Lake semantic models and AI-ready metadata on top of the final layer
Business definitions and relationships are captured alongside the data, so AI understands what it means

Why choose PTR?

We have been working with Fabric since its launch, and with data and business intelligence solutions for many years before that. Our consultants work across the whole data journey, from extracting the data out of your business systems, to presenting it on the page and everything in between. Training and knowledge share are baked into everything we do so we build in a way that your team can understand, maintain, and develop further over time.

Technologies

We specialise in building data solutions in the Microsoft ecosystem. We have been a Microsoft partner since 2005, currently holding Solution Partner designation for Data & AI (Azure), with certifications held across the team in Microsoft Fabric, Azure, and Power BI so you can be confident that our knowledge and skills have been tried and tested.

Microsoft Azure

Azure is a public cloud offering from Microsoft. With an ever expanding marketplace of components and services available, you can build tailor-made data platform solutions precisely to your specification.

Microsoft Purview

Microsoft Purview helps organisations understand, protect, and govern their data wherever it lives.

Microsoft Power BI

With its rich, engaging, and extensible interactive visualisation platform, Power BI empowers you to turn data into insight, enabling users to answer their own questions and drive data decision making.

How do we work with you?

Whether it's purely strategic advice, implementation and development work to spec, fractional business intelligence support, or a fully outsourced data function, we offer a range of flexible engagement patterns to suit every business, budget, and need.

Pay As You Go

DAY RATE

£1,250/day or £200/hour

Flexible delivery as and when you need it

No Commitment
Time and Materials
Use us when you need us

Fixed Project Fee

PRICE

£On Request

Everything locked in up front

Fixed Deliverables
Fixed Fee
Clear timescales

Retained Service

FROM

£1,095/month

Cost effective and flexible resource augmentation

12 Month Agreement
Minimum 1 day/month
Discounted day rate
Predictable monthly billing
Flexible delivery
Easy top-up
Discounted training

What does this look like for you?

Everyone is different so we tailor our approach to reflect that by listening to you, understanding where you're starting, where you're aiming for, and what your priorities are. This is just an example of what a typical journey often looks like with us, yours may be different but the starting point is the same - a chat!

1 Hour - An introductory call with one of our solution architects to learn about your requirements and help us identify the best next steps for you.

Typically 3-5 days - A deep dive investigation of your business systems and data estate, your people and their skills, and your business needs and aspirations. We use this to put together a solid technical strategy and implementation plan for you.

Typically 5 Days - Particularly with larger projects, it is useful to demonstrate the technical feasibility and business value of a project before committing to long term spend. Not always necessary, but can help to firm up some variables and to measure consumption demands which can be difficult to predict in cloud environments.

Typically 10-20 Days - This really will be different for everyone and can vary widely, but we aim to work in short cycles that deliver quick results with scope for iterative onward development and flexibility to change requirements.

Typically 3-5 Days/Month - Once people get an appetite for data, it tends to keep growing and with it, requirements keep evolving. Our retainer service enables you to keep a highly skilled data team on hand to respond to those changing requirements under a predictable billing model to suit your budget.

Free Discovery Workshop

Data Discovery Project

Proof of Concept/Value (PoC/PoV)

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Retained Consultancy Service

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