Advancing Data Integration: Innovation in Data Factory in MS Fabric at Ignite 2025
Microsoft Fabric isn’t just another data platform—it’s a game-changer, delivering enterprise-grade data integration at scale. At its foundation is Microsoft OneLake, a unified data lake that enables zero-copy and zero-ETL strategies—eliminating redundant data movement and complex pipelines. This approach helps organizations break down silos and maximize the value of their data, whether it resides in the Microsoft Cloud, across multiple clouds, on-premises, or behind firewalls.
Fabric Data Factory builds on proven technologies, combining the robustness of Azure Data Factory with the ease of Power Query into a single, integrated experience.
With 170+ native connectors, support for ETL and ELT patterns, and deep integration with AI and analytics services, Fabric Data Factory empowers organizations to unify their data estate and operationalize insights for analytics, machine learning, and business intelligence.
Microsoft: A Leader in Data Integration
We are proud to announce that Microsoft has been named a Leader in the latest IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Data Integration Software Platforms 2025 Vendor Assessment. We believe this recognition validates our technical leadership and commitment to delivering secure, extensible, and enterprise-grade data integration solutions that power our customers’ analytics and AI needs. To find out more, refer to this report.
IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures supplier product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of supplier strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Supplier market share is represented by the size of the icons.
Ignite 2025: Data Factory Feature Announcements
At Ignite 2025, we’re launching several new features in Data Factory—engineered for scale, intelligence, and developer productivity. There are some key innovation I want to highlight.
dbt job in Microsoft Fabric
With the introduction of dbt job in Microsoft Fabric, existing dbt users can seamlessly integrate their trusted workflows into Data Factory. This capability allows data engineers and analysts to author, orchestrate, and operationalize dbt-based transformations natively within Fabric—combining the modular, version-controlled, and testable approach you already know with enterprise-grade governance, CI/CD, and monitoring. By unifying code-first flexibility with low-code options, Fabric enables analytics and engineering teams to collaborate effortlessly and scale transformations across the organization— all within a secure, governed, and familiar environment. dbt job will become available in public preview in Fabric Data Factory in December.
We are also thrilled to announce a close collaboration with dbt Labs and Microsoft Fabric. As part of this collaboration, we are working to bring dbt Fusion into Microsoft Fabric, delivering next-generation performance and advanced developer capabilities. This will become available in calendar year 2026. Read more in the dbt Labs Press Release.
Mirroring for SAP
We are excited to announce the launch of SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Microsoft Fabric. This new capability simplifies access to semantically rich SAP data products through bi-directional, zero-copy sharing with Microsoft Fabric, enabling enterprises to gain instant access to trusted, business-ready insights for advanced analytics and AI. For customers who are invested in both SAP and Microsoft platforms, this capability represents the optimal approach for integrating SAP and non-SAP data within a unified data foundation. This will become available in calendar year 2026.
Also available today, Mirroring for SAP with SAP Datasphere enables organizations to replicate SAP data into Microsoft Fabric’s OneLake with minimal latency and zero-ETL complexity. This feature supports premium outbound integration, allowing enterprises to unlock real-time analytics and AI scenarios on SAP data, while maintaining data fidelity and compliance. Customers can now break down silos between SAP and the broader data estate, accelerating insights and innovation.
AI Function Transforms for Dataflow Gen2
AI Function Transforms in Dataflow Gen2 empower users to infuse advanced AI capabilities directly into their dataflows. With a simple, intuitive interface, data engineers can apply AI-powered transformations—such as entity extraction, sentiment analysis, and language detection—at scale, without writing custom code. This dramatically accelerates data enrichment, making downstream analytics and machine learning more powerful and accessible.
Additional Data Factory Announcements
High-Performance, Cost-Effective Data Transformation
- Export Query Results in Power BI Desktop: Power BI Desktop users can export transformed data from Power Query directly to cloud destinations like OneLake and SQL for easier sharing and downstream analytics.
- IntelliSense in Power Query Online: Syntax highlighting and IntelliSense are now available in Power Query Online, improving the authoring experience for data transformations.
Petabyte-Scale, Multi-Cloud Data Movement with Copy Job
- Connection parametrization with Variable Library: Deploy Copy jobs across environments using variable libraries for environment-specific connections, automating CI/CD without modifying jobs.
- Full & Incremental Copy from Database Queries: Perform both full and incremental copies on table subsets based on user-defined queries, enabling flexible data selection and filtering.
- Truncate Destination before Full Copy: Optionally truncate destination data before the initial full load to keep source and destination fully synchronized without duplicates.
- Change Data Capture for Snowflake, and Google BigQuery: Automatically capture inserts, updates, and deletions from these sources and replicate them to supported destinations without requiring watermark columns.
Pro-Code & Low-Code Data Orchestration, One Data Factory
- Add Synapse pipeline migration support to PowerShell: Synapse pipelines can now be migrated using the PowerShell migration tool for streamlined modernization.
- Opensource PowerShell migration tool: The migration tool is now open source, enabling community contributions and enhancements.
- Show Triggered By in pipeline activity runs: Easily identify the originator of pipeline runs in the monitor hub with the new TriggeredBy property.
- Add hierarchical view in monitor hub: Visualize all downstream references from your pipeline activity runs for improved monitoring and troubleshooting.
- Airflow: new public APIs for Apache Airflow jobs with files or external requirements: Easily include files and external requirements in your Airflow DAGs using new public APIs.
Database Mirroring
- Mirroring for PostgreSQL, CosmosDB, SQL Server 2016-2022 and SQL Server 2025, Snowflake with Iceberg Table support: Expanded mirroring support for these sources, enabling near real-time replication and analytics.
- Qlik joins the Mirroring Ecosystem: Qlik has added an Open Mirroring integration which supports over 40+ sources. Qlik marks the 14th partner to join the ecosystem empowering users to more seamlessly bring their data into OneLake. To learn more, refer to Open Mirroring.
AI-Powered Data Integration
- Pipeline – Generate Pipeline Expression with Natural Language: Use Copilot to efficiently understand business requirements in natural language and create pipeline expressions.
- Pipeline – Error Insights Summary for a Pipeline Run: Copilot provides categorized issues, root cause analysis, and recommendations for all failed activities in a pipeline run.
Mission-Critical Data Integration
- Snowflake Key Pair Auth: Power BI and Data Factory now support key pair authentication for Snowflake, enhancing security and automation.
- Workspace Private Link for Data Factory: Announced general availability —enables secure, private connectivity for Data Factory workspaces.
- Workspace Outbound Access Protection for Data Factory: Govern connections and data source endpoints to prevent data exfiltration and enhance compliance.
Summary
Microsoft Fabric Data Factory equips organizations with advanced, integrated data engineering capabilities—combining automation, governance, and productivity—essential for secure and efficient operations across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. We can’t wait to see what you build on top of these additions.
Stay tuned for a series of in-depth blog posts over the next month, getting into the details of many of these features. We hope to see you on our blogs, forums and Ideas channels as you work with Fabric Data Factory!
Learn more:
- Learn more about Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric
- Get Started with Microsoft Fabric
- What’s new and planned for Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric
- Read other in-depth, technical blogs on the Microsoft Fabric Updates Blog
