Transcribed
Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse - Simply Explained
Jul 23, 2026 ·
16m 34s
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Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse - Simply Explained
Description
Many people treat Microsoft Fabric's data warehouse as just another SQL database and miss what makes it different. This episode explains for beginners and data professionals how Fabric Warehouse works...
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Many people treat Microsoft Fabric's data warehouse as just another SQL database and miss what makes it different. This episode explains for beginners and data professionals how Fabric Warehouse works on OneLake, which features like time travel, cloning and Direct Lake it unlocks, and when to choose it over a lakehouse or Eventhouse.
In this episode
Key takeaways
Worth quoting
“Traditional databases are islands, but fabric warehouse is a room in a connected building. The walls are still there.” – Mirko Peters (03:56)
“With time travel, you just adjust your query. See the data as it was, copy it back and keep moving. No backup restore needed.” – Mirko Peters (10:21)
Explore more on M365.FM
Follow and rate M365.FM in your podcast app, and join the free M365 community at m365con.net.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/m365-fm-microsoft-365-azure-cloud-power-platform-ai--6704921/support.
show less
In this episode
- 00:00 – Why Fabric Warehouse is not just SQL
- 00:47 – What is a data warehouse? The old way
- 02:23 – How Fabric Warehouse works under the hood
- 04:09 – Building blocks and loading data
- 07:49 – Querying with T-SQL and cross-database queries
- 09:31 – Time travel and table cloning
- 11:54 – Performance: GPU acceleration and Direct Lake
- 13:45 – Warehouse vs. lakehouse vs. Eventhouse
Key takeaways
- Fabric Warehouse feels like SQL Server but stores every table as Delta Parquet in OneLake, separating compute from shared storage.
- Delta storage enables cross-database queries, 30-day time travel and zero-copy table cloning out of the box.
- Use the lakehouse for raw exploration, the warehouse for clean, structured reporting data with full DML, and Eventhouse for time-based streams.
Worth quoting
“Traditional databases are islands, but fabric warehouse is a room in a connected building. The walls are still there.” – Mirko Peters (03:56)
“With time travel, you just adjust your query. See the data as it was, copy it back and keep moving. No backup restore needed.” – Mirko Peters (10:21)
Explore more on M365.FM
- Episode page: the full episode with chapters, quotes and a beginner FAQ on Fabric Warehouse
- Microsoft Fabric – the unified analytics platform whose warehouse stores every table as Delta files in OneLake
- Power BI – reads warehouse data through Direct Lake mode, without imports or live queries
- Fabric workspace – where GPU acceleration is switched on and the SQL endpoint lists all databases
- Fabric notebooks – Spark notebooks load and process the same Delta tables the warehouse queries with T-SQL
- Related episode: Microsoft Fabric End-to-End: From Raw Data to Business Decisions with Amit Chandak [MVP]
Follow and rate M365.FM in your podcast app, and join the free M365 community at m365con.net.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/m365-fm-microsoft-365-azure-cloud-power-platform-ai--6704921/support.
Information
| Author | Mirko Peters M365, Azure & AI |
| Organization | m365 FM |
| Website | www.m365.fm |
| Tags |
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