Create your own Microsoft Fabric environment

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In this post I want to cover one way that you can create your own Microsoft Fabric environment.

Plus, this post contains additional content about Fabric git integration and recommended resources. Since I have been asked about both recently.

In reality, I covered some parts of this post in my previous post. However, after some feedback about my lightning talk at Data Ceili I thought I better dedicate a whole post to it. To help spread the message more on how you can do this.

By the end of this post, you will know more about the above areas. Plus, I share plenty of links along the way.

One key point to note is that Microsoft Fabric is now generally available. You can read more about this in detail in the official post by Ryan Majidimehr.

Important May 2024 update

It is worth nothing that as of February 2024 Microsoft have limited access to the Microsoft 365 Developer Program.

This means you may need an alternative route to create your own tenant instead of the ‘Create your own Microsoft Fabric environment’ section below.

Below are some alternatives that you can explore if you are looking to create a trial tenant:

• Register for the Office 365 E5 trial on the Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans page. Note that it appears that you need to enter payment details for this. Which you must cancel before your trial is due to end.
• If you work for an employer who happens to be a Microsoft Partner you may already be eligible to create a trial tenant. You can test this by attempting to login to the Microsoft Customer Digital Experiences (CDX) site.
  You can find out more about the CDX site by watching the “The secrets behind Microsoft demo environments” video by fellow MVP Dean Ellerby (l).
  However, be aware that there are potentially issues with creating tenants on there at this moment in time.
• Alternatively, if you work for an employer who is part of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program you can request access to a developer subscription. Providing you create it whilst logged in using your work account.

You can read more about the changes to the Microsoft 365 Developer Program in a post from January relating to updates. I must stress that all other sections in this post are still relevant.

Create your own Microsoft Fabric environment

In reality, there are a few different ways to join the Microsoft Fabric (Preview) trial.

For example, you might be lucky enough to have it enabled in a workplace already. However, there are ways that you can create your own Microsoft Fabric environment as well.

Creating your own environment introduces some interesting possibilities. Due to the fact that it allows you to be a Microsoft tenant administrator in your own private environment.

Which gives you the freedom to experiment with Microsoft Fabric. Along with related elements such as Fabric git integration with Azure DevOps and the compliance story.

Now there are various ways that you can setup your own environment. Including one I shared in my previous post that included a link to a step-by-step guide to enable Microsoft Fabric for Microsoft 365 Developer Account.

By following the links in that post you can register for a Microsoft 365 Developer Account. Where you get provisioned Microsoft 365 E5 subscription along with an Azure Active Directory tenant for use for a trial period.

You will know when this has worked because you will receive an email and access to the below dashboard. Which shows that you have a Microsoft 365 E5 subscription for a trial period of time.

To clarify, you get the E5 trial for ninety days as shown above. Once the trial is over you cannot register for another trial with the same email address again for sixty days. Whereas the Microsoft Fabric trial lasts for sixty days.

Enabling the Microsoft Fabric trial

Once the above is done, you can then login through the Power BI website to follow the rest of the step-by-step guide to enable the Microsoft Fabric trial. However, I do highly recommend that you do a couple of things when you get to this stage.

First of all, I suggest you sign into the website using an incognito or private window to avoid any issues.

Secondly, I strongly recommend that you add the additional security requested when you login to the website with the created administrator account as soon as possible. To avoid any anomalies.

Once you have activated your Microsoft Fabric trail you can access Microsoft Fabric through either the Power BI website or the Microsoft Fabric website. By using the created administrator account.

Once you have are up and running you can start working with Microsoft Fabric. Just like you have probably seen online. I share some recommended resources to help with this towards the bottom of this post.

Fabric git integration

If you enable a Microsoft Fabric trial using the above method you get a couple of interesting options as far as Fabric git integration is concerned.

When you setup the Microsoft 365 Developer Account the administrator account immediately has an Outlook mailbox configured. Which means that the administrator account can accept invites from other Azure DevOps organizations.

However, you can also create your own Azure DevOps organization with that account.

In reality, there are pros and cons for both of the above options.

For instance, if you configure Fabric git integration to work with a separate Azure DevOps organization you can access the contents of that repository elsewhere. Plus, it won’t expire like the other account.

However, if you create an Azure DevOps organization using the administrator account you can easily bind that organization to the Azure Active Directory tenant that gets created with the subscription. Like in the below example.

On the downside, once your 365 Developer trial is over you will not be able to access that Azure DevOps organization. Unless you detach from that Active Directory and assign it a new owner.

Using either of the above methods allows you to connect a Microsoft Fabric workspace to an existing Git repository in Azure Repos.

Where the Git repository looks like the below when you navigate to it in Azure Repos.

One key point to remember is that only supported items are stored in this repository. Which at this moment in time are Lakehouses, notebooks, reports, paginated reports and semantic models (datasets).

Purview compliance portal

In addition to the above, you also get access to the Microsoft Purview compliance portal when you create a Microsoft 365 Develop Account. Which I covered in my previous post about configuring compliance with Microsoft Fabric.

You can read more about that in my post about configuring compliance for Microsoft Fabric.

Azure free trial

You can navigate to the Azure portal in the same browser session that you use to open Microsoft Fabric. So that you can manage Microsoft Entra ID, which is the new name for Azure Active Directory.

However, one thing to be aware of is that you cannot register for the Azure free trial with this account. Even though you are invited to on the home screen.

If you try to register for it you will get is a message telling you that the account is not supported. So, you will have to find another way to test services like the Microsoft Purview Governance Portal with your Microsoft Fabric environment.

Recommended resources

Microsoft has been working on Microsoft Fabric for some time and it shows. Due to how much is available through this offering.

To align with the announcement a Microsoft Fabric Launch Digital event took place at the same time as Microsoft Build this year. You can watch both the Day 1 video and the Day 2 video on YouTube now.

In addition to the videos, there is other online material available. For instance, there is a website that covers Microsoft Fabric. Which includes some really good end-to-end tutorials in Microsoft Fabric to help you get up to speed with it.

Plus, there is a learning path in Microsoft Learn to help you get started with Microsoft Fabric.

Furthermore, there is already an online Fabric community that you can join.

Final words about creating your own Microsoft Fabric environment

I hope this post encourages some of you to create your own Microsoft Fabric environment. Because that was my main reason for doing this post.

Of course, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.