The Data Convergence: Streamlining Data Management and Governance

95% of businesses say that managing unstructured data is a problem for their business. On top of this, nearly half (45%) of organisations consider their data governance ineffective. This is why you must be aware of what you can do to ensure your business knows the ins and outs of both.

One of the most beneficial ways to improve your data management and governance is by ensuring it's streamlined and efficient. Microsoft's key data tools, — Purview and Fabric — excel at this, and are essential to getting the most out of your data.

In this article, we're going to go over the ins and outs of Microsoft Purview and Fabric, and how to utilise them to streamline your company’s data management and governance. We’ll also review their key benefits and how to implement them effectively.

The Role of Microsoft Fabric in Data Integration

Microsoft Fabric is essential to streamline your company’s data integration. It offers a unified platform for managing the entire lifecycle of your data, from its creation to its eventual retirement.

Here’s a breakdown of some of its key functionalities —

• Unified Data Platform: Fabric combines various data-focused Microsoft services — such as Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI — into a single powerful platform, removing the need to switch between several tools throughout the data management process.
• Seamless Data Ingestion: Fabric allows you to import structured and unstructured data from a wide variety of sources such as files and logs, databases, and even real-time data from IoT devices. This ensures you can collect all types of relevant data into Fabric for analysis.
• Robust Data Transformation and ETL: Fabric’s ETL (Extract, Transformation, Load) capabilities effectively handle any data preparation task necessary, offering tools such as intricate data workflows, user-friendly dataflow processes, and custom transformations using Python or R.

Microsoft Fabric simplifies data integration by providing a centralised platform for data ingestion, storage, and transformation. It also showcases valuable insights from your data, allowing your business to thrive.

Understanding Microsoft Purview for Data Governance

Microsoft Purview is designed to help organisations manage and understand their data, both in the cloud and on-premises.

Purview offers an extensive list of tools, which can be used for —

• Data Discovery: Purview automatically identifies and classifies data assets. It does so by scanning your data landscape, including data stored in the cloud, on-premises, and in SaaS applications.
• Data Cataloguing: Purview creates a metadata complete catalogue of all your data, which serves as a single information hub for all users to easily access.
• Data Lineage: By tracking data movement throughout your systems, Purview helps you understand how data is created, transformed, and used throughout your business.
• Data Classification: Purview lets you identify, classify, and apply security measures to all sensitive data, strengthening your security posture.
• Data Access Control: Purview lets you control who can access what data, making sure that nobody can access your most sensitive data without authorisation.
• Data Sharing: Purview allows for private and secure sharing of data in or between businesses, which eliminates the need for unnecessary data duplication.

This combined platform makes data governance a breeze — and makes Purview the ultimate software for controlling your data.

Key Features and Benefits of Microsoft Fabric and Purview

Both of these services work perfectly together as a dynamic data management duo. With Purview focusing on data governance and Fabric catering to your data integration needs, they go hand-in-hand as a powerful asset for your business.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of using both tools —

• Reduced Complexity: Both Purview and Fabric create a unified platform for all your data management needs. They do so by compiling and tracking all data information and having a wide variety of tools readily accessible to manage it. This reduces the complexity and ensures everything necessary is in one place.
• Take Control of Your Data: Both tools give you ultimate control over your data. Fabric allows you to easily integrate, manage, prepare, and visualise your data, and Purview lets you take the next step to classify, catalogue, and track your data’s usage.
• Reduced Costs: Using Fabric and Purview reduces the need for manual management of data, saving valuable company time and resources. Also, you don’t have to invest in lots of different software to take care of your data due to the wide feature set and integration into the Microsoft ecosystem.

Fabric provides the foundation by gathering and preparing your data for analysis, and Purview secures the data, ensuring it is classified, protected, and used responsibly.

Implementing Microsoft Tools for Effective Data Strategies

There are lots of different ways that you can use Microsoft Purview and Fabric together to create effective data strategies.

Both tools make data visibility far easier all around, as you can identify all of your data in Fabric using Purview’s discovery tools. Plus, allowing users to track this data to see where it comes from and how it’s managed fosters trust within your business.

Moreover, utilising Purview’s classification and protection tools alongside Fabric ensures your sensitive data is only accessed by authorised personnel. You can define access controls and data protection policies, making your security far tighter overall.

On top of this, both Purview and Fabric help democratise data, by ensuring that governance is simpler than ever and that data access is transparent. By using Purview to control access to that data, it’s easier than ever to empower users with access to that data within Fabric.

How To Get Started

Microsoft Fabric and Purview are two potent data management and governance tools, that streamline and simplify the whole data process. By using these tools together, you unlock the full potential of data management, while giving yourself the governance tools to make sure your data has the highest degree of protection.

If you’re looking to get started with Microsoft Fabric and Purview, reach out to us now. We’re here to help you get started and will ensure that you have support the whole way through.

Get in touch with us now and see how we can help.