Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric has significantly transformed data access making data unification for all your AI and BI needs simple, requiring zero-ETL. Mirroring for Google BigQuery and Oracle are now in preview along with ability to chat with your Mirrored data directly in a Data Agent. Azure SQL Managed Instance is also GA with support for sources behind a firewall for Snowflake, Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Managed Instance. Read on to learn more!
Before Mirroring, connecting to data often involved intricate transformations, pipelines, and scheduling, which were challenging to set up and maintain. The introduction of open formats such as Delta further increased complexity requiring users to convert proprietary data into an open format before moving forward with their analytics and AI use cases. Customers like Steve Pritchard at James Hall & Co. Ltd. have been able to make the complex simple with Mirroring and empower users with the business-critical insights they need.
Our background capacity unit (CU) consumption has dropped to near zero, freeing up resources for interactive reporting. We are currently mirroring nearly half a billion rows across 50 tables. This data is servicing over 30 reports accessible to our 400+ users. This is giving the business insight into their Sales, Stock, and Wastage to improve efficiency and profitability. Reports now update almost instantly and provide broader, more detailed insights than we’ve been able to provide before. We’re now planning to roll out a wider suite of datasets to unlock even more analytical possibilities for the business. Thanks to Open Mirroring, getting data into Fabric is no longer a concern and we can focus fully on delivering value through the data itself.
Steve Pritchard, Data Services Manager at James Hall & Co. Ltd.
Sources and capabilities (Generally Available)
Mirroring is now more robust and enterprise-ready than ever. Customers can mirror data from Azure SQL Managed Instance (Generally Available). VNet and on-premises gateway support is now available for Snowflake, Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Managed Instance, enabling secure connections behind firewalls. Workspace identity authentication is now supported for Azure SQL Database mirroring, improving security. Open Mirroring is the Mirroring extensibility platform allowing developers and ISVs to build their own custom Mirroring solution. Open Mirroring now includes UI support for delimited text (.txt, .csv, etc.) and welcomes new partners, CData and Tessell to the ecosystem, who join CS-WorldWide and 10+ other partners in the ecosystem.
It’s also simpler than ever to use your Mirrored data for analytics! Users can create semantic models directly through the Mirrored Database UI or within Power BI Desktop, streamlining the process to actionable insights.
Mirroring for Oracle and Google BigQuery (Preview)
Enabling customers to continuously replicate data from Oracle databases—including on-premises, Oracle OCI, and Exadata—directly into OneLake. Mirroring for Google BigQuery includes key capabilities like support for non-primary key tables and on-premises data gateway. As with all Mirroring sources, set up is straightforward, requiring zero-ETL. Users can use their mirrored Google Big Query and Oracle data for all their analytics and AI use cases and feel confident in near-real time data freshness.
Check out Mirroring for Google BigQuery (Preview)Check out Mirroring for Oracle- including OCI and Exadata (Preview)
Chat with your Mirrored Data in a Data Agent (Preview)
In addition to new sources, you can now chat with any mirrored data in a Data Agent! Simply select the Mirror databases you’d like to chat with and you’re off to the races. Ask questions of your data and gain quick insights just like you would any data inside a Lakehouse!
Coming soon to Mirroring
The roadmap ahead includes support for Delta Change Data Feed (CDF) making it easier than ever to track data changes overtime. Snowflake Mirroring will soon support other types of data assets starting with views. Governing data in a mirrored databases will be easier than ever with upcoming support for OneLake Security. Open Mirroring will support partitions and make it easier than ever to mirror files that don’t have primary keys.
We’re only scratching the surface, and we want to hear from you through our various feedback channels! Upvote an idea that stands out to you!
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