Retries are a useful part of resilient pipelines. However, retries aren’t created equal, so I want to dive into recent changes to pipeline activity retries and the benefits they bring. The issue Failures happen, so we have retries to have another chance (or few) at completing the activity. They look something like this: These fixed […]
Pipeline sequences are a common orchestration pattern, and chaining them allows us to decompose processes into manageable chunks. Here I want to look at 3 ways to achieve this chaining in Fabric and how they compare. Invoke pipeline The default option is the native Invoke Pipeline activity. This allows us to call pipelines wherever they […]
Last week we looked at the medallion architecture so I wanted to follow up by diving a little deeper into the Bronze layer by taking a practical example to compare options for retrieving data. Fabric provides a number of ways to bring data into the platform. Here I’ll sample 4 specifically: For this example I’ll use NHS monthly […]
We recently dived into Spark and saw how DataFrames use lazy evaluation to defer execution until needed. This is useful for defining segments of logic to be reused, but if this causes large, complex calculations to execute multiple times, there may be a better way. Lazy evaluation Let’s take an example with some sales data: The display triggers execution […]
I’ve spent years shaping data with SQL Server, however after pulling at the threads of Fabric I’m opening notebooks and finding PySpark. At first glance the difference is stark, but it’s not quite the dramatic shift it appears. If you’re not familiar, let’s look at what’s very similar, and where the true differences are. Same data, different […]
I’ve had Fabric gnawing at me for too long. Whilst I’ve dabbled in a couple of areas, I haven’t taken the time to explore the breadth of what Microsoft’s flagship data platform offers. That is, until I recently took the plunge. For those who may be in the same position, I wanted to share the […]
If you’ve tried to get header rows to repeat or scroll as you move through your paginated reports, you may have felt the frustration of getting them working correctly. Whether it’s Reporting Services, Power BI, or Fabric, the flavour doesn’t matter. The properties on the tablix should provide the functionality, but they’re not reliable. In this post […]
When using Power BI or Fabric workspaces to browse reports, we’re greeted with a list of items and their attributes. While attention is given to report visuals such as bars, pies, candles, and RAG highlights, the surrounding experience is neglected. When it comes to consumption, the standard interface falls short. Apps fill this gap. They’ve […]
