Microsoft Fabric Interview Questions and Answers: A Comprehensive Guide

Microsoft Fabric Interview Questions and Answers: Microsoft Service Fabric is a versatile platform for building and managing scalable microservices and container-based applications. It has become increasingly popular, and job opportunities in this domain are on the rise. If you’re preparing for an interview related to Microsoft Fabric or microservices, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll provide you with a comprehensive list of interview questions and answers to help you ace your Microsoft Fabric interview.

General Microsoft Fabric Interview Questions

Q1: What is Microsoft Fabric and what are its main components?

A1: Microsoft Fabric is a cloud-based SaaS offering that brings together several data and analytics tools that organizations need. These include Data Factory, Synapse Data Warehouse, Synapse Data Engineering, Synapse Data Science, Synapse Real-Time Analytics, Power BI, and Data Activator (coming soon). Fabric is built on an open, lake-centric design with a central, multi-cloud repository called OneLake. Microsoft Fabric supports open data formats across all its workloads and tiers, caters to technical and business data practitioners, and has customers like T-Mobile, Ferguson, and Aon.

Q2: What are the benefits of using Microsoft Fabric for data and analytics?

A2: Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Fabric are:

Scalability: Microsoft Fabric can handle any volume, variety, and velocity of data with its elastic and distributed architecture. It can scale up or down as per the demand and optimize the cost and performance of data workloads.

Reliability: Microsoft Fabric ensures high availability and fault tolerance of data workloads with its built-in resiliency and backup features. It also provides end-to-end data governance and security with its unified metadata management and role-based access control.

Performance: Microsoft Fabric leverages the power of Azure OpenAI Service and GPT-powered Copilot to infuse generative AI into every layer of data workloads. It also enables fast query processing and real-time analytics with its in-memory caching and streaming capabilities.

Security: Microsoft Fabric protects data at rest and in transit with its encryption and encryption key management features. It also complies with various industry standards and regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc.

Flexibility: Microsoft Fabric supports multiple data sources, formats, languages, frameworks, and tools with its open and interoperable design. It also allows users to choose their preferred development environment and deployment model with its hybrid and multi-cloud capabilities.

Q3: What is OneLake and how does it work?

A3: OneLake is the central, multi-cloud repository of Microsoft Fabric that stores all the data in an open lakehouse format. A lakehouse is a combination of a data lake and a data warehouse that supports both structured and unstructured data with high performance and governance. OneLake uses Delta Lake as the underlying storage layer that enables ACID transactions, schema enforcement, versioning, time travel, and incremental processing of data. OneLake also integrates with various Azure services such as Azure Storage, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2, Azure Blob Storage, etc., to provide seamless access to data across different clouds.

Q4: What is Data Factory and how does it integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

A4: Data Factory is a fully managed service that enables users to create data pipelines for ingesting, transforming, and loading data from various sources to OneLake or other destinations. Data Factory provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for designing data flows and pipelines, as well as a code-first approach for writing custom logic using Python or Scala. Data Factory also supports orchestration of activities across different services such as Synapse Data Warehouse, Synapse Data Engineering, Synapse Data Science, etc., within Microsoft Fabric.

Q5: What is Synapse Data Warehouse and how does it integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

A5: Synapse Data Warehouse is a cloud-based service that provides a relational database for storing and querying structured or semi-structured data. Synapse Data Warehouse supports ANSI SQL standards and integrates with various BI tools such as Power BI for reporting and visualization. Synapse Data Warehouse also leverages the distributed processing power of Spark to enable fast query execution and advanced analytics on large-scale data. Synapse Data Warehouse can access data directly from OneLake or other sources using external tables or PolyBase.

Q6: What is Synapse Data Engineering and how does it integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

A6: Synapse Data Engineering is a cloud-based service that provides a Spark-based environment for performing data engineering tasks such as cleansing, transforming, enriching, aggregating, or joining data. Synapse Data Engineering supports multiple languages such as Python, Scala, SQL, R, etc., as well as multiple frameworks such as PySpark, Spark SQL, Spark MLlib, etc., for writing data engineering code. Synapse Data Engineering also provides a notebook interface for interactive development and testing of data engineering code. Synapse Data Engineering can access data from OneLake or other sources using Spark connectors or APIs.

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Q7: What is Synapse Data Science and how does it integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

A7: Synapse Data Science is a cloud-based service that provides a Spark-based environment for performing data science tasks such as exploring, analyzing, modeling, or predicting data. Synapse Data Science supports multiple languages such as Python, Scala, SQL, R, etc., as well as multiple frameworks such as PySpark, Spark SQL, Spark MLlib, etc., for writing data science code. Synapse Data Science also provides a notebook interface for interactive development and testing of data science code. Synapse Data Science can access data from OneLake or other sources using Spark connectors or APIs. Synapse Data Science also integrates with Semantic Link, a feature that enables easy connections between Power BI datasets and Synapse Data Science notebooks.

Q8: What is Synapse Real-Time Analytics and how does it integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

A8: Synapse Real-Time Analytics is a cloud-based service that provides a streaming platform for processing and analyzing real-time data. Synapse Real-Time Analytics supports multiple sources such as Kafka, Event Hubs, IoT Hub, etc., as well as multiple sinks such as Power BI, Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, etc., for ingesting and outputting streaming data. Synapse Real-Time Analytics also supports multiple languages such as Python, Scala, SQL, etc., as well as multiple frameworks such as Spark Structured Streaming, Databricks Streaming, etc., for writing streaming code. Synapse Real-Time Analytics can access data from OneLake or other sources using Spark connectors or APIs.

Q9: What is Power BI and how does it integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

A9: Power BI is a cloud-based service that provides a BI platform for creating and sharing interactive reports and dashboards. Power BI supports multiple data sources such as OneLake, Synapse Data Warehouse, Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB, etc., as well as multiple data formats such as CSV, JSON, Parquet, etc., for connecting and importing data. Power BI also supports multiple visualization types such as charts, maps, tables, etc., as well as multiple features such as filters, slicers, drill-downs, etc., for creating and customizing reports and dashboards. Power BI also integrates with Semantic Link, a feature that enables easy connections between Power BI datasets and Synapse Data Science notebooks.

Q10: What is Data Activator and how does it integrate with Microsoft Fabric?

A10: Data Activator is a cloud-based service that provides a data catalog and a data marketplace for discovering, curating, and sharing data assets within Microsoft Fabric. Data Activator enables users to search and browse data assets across different services such as OneLake, Synapse Data Warehouse, Synapse Data Engineering, Synapse Data Science, etc., using metadata and tags. Data Activator also enables users to request and grant access to data assets using policies and workflows. Data Activator also enables users to publish and consume data assets using APIs or connectors.

Q11: How does Microsoft Fabric support hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios?

A11: Microsoft Fabric supports hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios by allowing users to choose their preferred deployment model and cloud provider for their data workloads. Users can deploy Microsoft Fabric on Azure or on-premises using Azure Arc or Azure Stack. Users can also connect Microsoft Fabric to other cloud providers such as AWS or Google Cloud using Azure ExpressRoute or VPN Gateway. Users can also migrate or replicate their data workloads across different clouds using Azure Data Factory or Azure Migrate.

Q12: How does Microsoft Fabric ensure data governance and security?

A12: Microsoft Fabric ensures data governance and security by providing a unified metadata management and role-based access control system across all its services. Users can define schemas, classifications, lineage, quality rules, etc., for their data assets using the Data Catalog feature of OneLake or the Metadata Store feature of Synapse Data Warehouse. Users can also assign roles and permissions to their data assets using the Access Control feature of OneLake or the Security Center feature of Synapse Data Warehouse. Users can also monitor and audit their data activities using the Monitoring feature of OneLake or the Audit Logs feature of Synapse Data Warehouse.

Q13: How does Microsoft Fabric leverage AI and GPT-powered Copilot?

A13: Microsoft Fabric leverages AI and GPT-powered Copilot to infuse generative AI into every layer of data workloads. AI and GPT-powered Copilot help users to: