Unifying the Data Estate for the next AI Frontier Fabcon Keynote

The Atlanta FabCon keynote was delivered last Wednesday by Amir Netz (CTO and Technical Fellow), Arun Ulag (President, Azure Data), Shireesh Thota (Corporate Vice President, Azure Databases).  It has was recorded. You can watch it here. 

Session Abstract

As organizations race to deploy generative and agentic AI, the biggest challenge they face is not models, it’s their data estate. Join Microsoft engineering leadership to learn how Microsoft’s databases can be unified through Microsoft Fabric and OneLake, creating a single, governed foundation for analytics, AI, and intelligent agents. Discover why this shift represents a fundamental change in how modern data platforms are built, managed, and scaled for the next AI frontier.

A summary of the announcements.

SQL Server’s Next Chapter: What the New Release Signals for Enterprise Data Estates

The latest SQL Server release marked a significant shift in Microsoft’s data platform strategy. Rather than positioning SQL Server as a standalone engine, the new version embraces its role within a broader ecosystem, one that includes Fabric, Purview, and Azure AI. This is not just a technical update but a strategic repositioning that acknowledges how modern data estates actually operate. SQL Server is no longer the centre of gravity. It is a critical component in a distributed, interconnected architecture.

One of the most meaningful changes is the deeper integration with governance and observability tooling. SQL Server has always been strong on performance and reliability, but governance was often something organisations had to bolt on themselves. The new release changes that. Enhanced metadata exposure, improved auditing, and richer lineage signals mean SQL Server can now participate more fully in enterprise‑wide governance frameworks.

Hybrid workloads also receive significant attention. Many organisations still run mission‑critical workloads on‑premises while exploring cloud‑native architectures. The new SQL Server release acknowledges this reality by improving consistency across environments. This reduces friction for teams managing mixed estates and makes it easier to apply governance and security policies uniformly.

For data leaders, the message is clear, SQL Server is evolving to support modern architectures rather than compete with them. It’s becoming more transparent, more governable, and more aligned with the needs of organisations navigating the AI era. SQL Server’s next chapter is one built on integration, not isolation.

Image Source: Microsoft

What is new for Databases and Fabric at Ignite

There is significant news on the database front. Microsoft is unifying its data platform by deeply integrating its databases with Microsoft Fabric, creating a seamless, AI-powered data estate.

Unified Data Estate with Microsoft Fabric

• Microsoft Fabric now acts as a unified platform that integrates Microsoft’s operational databases (like Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL, and PostgreSQL) with analytics and AI tools.
• This integration enables real-time insights and governed data sharing across operational and analytical systems without complex ETL pipelines.

Real-Time Analytics with Synapse Real-Time Intelligence

• The new Synapse Real-Time Intelligence in Fabric allows streaming data from operational databases to be analyzed instantly.
• This supports use cases like fraud detection, predictive maintenance, and personalized recommendations.

Built-in Governance and Security

• Microsoft Purview is embedded in Fabric, ensuring data lineage, access control, and compliance across the entire data estate.
• This helps organizations meet regulatory requirements while maintaining agility.

AI-Ready Data for Copilot and Custom Models

• With this integration, data from operational systems becomes AI-ready by default, enabling seamless use with Microsoft Copilot and custom AI models.
• This supports natural language querying, automated insights, and generative AI applications.

Fabric IQ 

Fabric IQ is Microsoft Fabric’s new semantic intelligence layer that transforms raw data into business-aware insights by embedding meaning, relationships, and operational context directly into the data platform. This announcement marks the moment Microsoft Fabric evolves from a unified data platform into a unified intelligence platform. It created a shared, real-time understanding of the business. It is designed to solve a core challenge in enterprise AI: AI agents can read data, but they often lack the business context to interpret it meaningfully. Fabric IQ introduces a semantic layer that maps data to real-world business concepts like customers, flights, or inventory, rather than just tables and columns

Fabric IQ introduces a semantic intelligence layer that gives both people and AI the same deep business context your experts rely on. It connects data, meaning, and action through:

• Ontology - A shared business model built with no-code visual tools
• Semantic Model - Trusted BI definitions extended into operations & AI
• Graph Engine - Multi-hop reasoning across connected business systems
• Data Agent - Virtual analysts that answer questions using real business semantics
• Operations Agent - Autonomous agents that monitor, reason, and act in real time

Bi-Directional Data Movement

• Fabric supports bi-directional data movement between databases and the analytics layer, enabling write-back scenarios like updating customer profiles or triggering workflows.

Microsoft Databases and Microsoft Fabric: Your unified and AI-powered data estate

SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric

SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric is a cloud-native, developer-friendly transactional database built on the same engine as Azure SQL Database, designed to integrate seamlessly with the broader Fabric ecosystem.

SQL database in Fabric is built on 3 important pillars: Simple, Autonomous & Secure, and Optimized for AI. It is now genernally available. 

Announcing SQL database in Fabric (Generally Available)

SQL Server 2025 is Generally Available

There were a lot of database announcements at Microsoft Ignite which continues to broaden the scope and offerings available. 

The general availability of the next version of SQL Server, SQL Server  2025 was announced. This new version continues to offer best in class security and performance. It is built for AI, made for developers and offer cloud agility through Azure. 

SQL Server 2025 is Now Generally Available

The product just continues to grow.  

The platform architecture

with these editions

Other database announcements: 

Azure DocumentDB (GA)

Azure DocumentDB offers AI-ready data, open standards, and multi-cloud deployment. It is a fully managed NoSQL service built on open-source tech and designed for hybrid and multicloud flexibility. It supports advanced search and vector embeddings for more accurate results and is compatible with popular open-source MongoDB drivers and tools.

Azure HorizonDB (Preview)

Azure HorizonDB is a new fully managed PostgreSQL database service.  It runs up to three times faster than open-source PostgreSQL and grows to handle demanding storage requirements with up to 15 replicas running on auto-scaling shared storage.

SQL Database in Fabric (GA)

SQL Database in Fabric bridges the gap between transactional and analytical workloads, enabling scenarios, where data is instantly available for both operational use and analytics, without performance trade-offs or complex ETL pipelines.

Database mirroring in Microsoft Fabric (GA)

The General Availability (GA) of mirroring for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and Cosmos DB. Mirroring for SQL Server 2025 (on-premises or on VMs) was announced as being in Preview. 

Fabric November 2025 Feature Summary | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft introduced ecosystem interoperability as a cornerstone of its AI and data strategy. It enables organizations to connect and analyze data across platforms without moving or duplicating it, thus preserving governance, reducing cost, and accelerating insights. It unlocks data estates for AI models to train on live ,governed data, provides business users access insights without waiting for ETL pipelines, as well as reducing complexity for enterprises and cost while improving compliance.

The Key Components Explained

Zero-Copy Integrations

These allow data to be accessed and shared across systems without physically copying it. This is crucial for:

• Security: Data remains in its original location.
• Efficiency: No duplication means lower storage and compute costs.
• Governance: Original data lineage and controls are preserved.

SAP BDC (Business Data Cloud)

Microsoft Fabric now supports bi-directional zero-copy sharing with SAP BDC, giving instant access to semantically rich SAP data for analytics and AI.

Salesforce Data Cloud

Microsoft joins Salesforce’s Zero Copy Partner Network, enabling secure, bidirectional zero-copy integration with platforms like Databricks, Snowflake, and now Microsoft Fabric.

Azure Databricks and Snowflake

Expanded support means these platforms can now participate in zero-copy sharing with Microsoft Fabric, enabling unified analytics across cloud ecosystems.

dbt Jobs in Fabric (Preview)

dbt (data build tool) is now integrated into Fabric, allowing teams to run transformation workflows directly within Microsoft’s unified data platform. This streamlines development and governance for analytics engineers.

Azure at Microsoft Ignite 2025: All the intelligent cloud news explained | Microsoft Azure Blog

The year ahead for SQL Server 2025

In the session SQL Server 2025 An enterprise AI-ready database platform the  core features for the next version of SQL Server were shared being based on

• AI built-in
• Best in class security and performance
• Fabric and Azure Arc connected. 

SQL Server 2025 is built from the ground to cloud with AI  ready applications. SQL Server 2025 is to have 

• Vector store - native vector data type and DiskANN index
• Model Management - model interfaces ground to cloud using REST
• Embeddings built-in - text chunking and built-in embedding generation
• Simple semantic searching - vector distance and vector search
• Framework integration - LangChain, Semantic Kernel, Entity Framework Core

All changes made for SQL will be deployed across all deployment options and all versions. 

It is integrated with Microsoft Fabric

The year ahead for SQL Server: Ground to cloud to fabric

Responsible AI is embedded and available on premises or in the cloud.

There is now SQL database in Fabric

Azure Arc extends to Azure services to SQL Server anywhere to streamline migrations to Azure. 

Watch more about the latest release from Joe Sack, Erin Stellato and Bob Ward. So many innovations in this version of SQL Serer it changes what options are available for use.

Microsoft Ignite 2024 keynote

The Microsoft Ignite keynote in Chicago November 2004 looked at adoption, extensibility and ROI. Copilot is the UI for AI. There were many announcements as expected for Microsoft Ignite

Copilot Action - regain focus time and simplify you workday Read More: aka.ms/CopilotActions

Agents in Microsoft 365 Read more:  aka.ms/AgentsinM365

Copilot studio - Autonomous agents and thirty Party Agents. Importantly Copilot Analytics including 

• Copilot Dashboard
• Business Impact Report
• Advanced Insights

to measure AI impact on your business. This impact report will help drive valuable insight to gain business value. It shows how AI is driving revolutionary productivity and changing business.

Read More: aka.ms/CopilotAnalytics

It was exciting to see the announcement of SQL Server 2025

Apply for the preview for the enterprise AI-ready database

Fabric Databases Accelerate app innovation with an AI-powered data platform with Fabric Databases .

It is a new class of cloud databases

New centralized management and governance controls and risk and safety evaluation for images with Azure AI Foundry announced

hashtag

These governance controls are in private preview

• create AI reports to govern AI apps and models
• view and manage key subscription details
• simplified setup of hubs, projects and resources

The breadth of Azure AI model was shown with their being offerings from a wide collection of frontier and open models.  Being around 1800 models currently.

Risk and safety evaluations for images to assess AI models and apps for harmful outputs. Looking to 

• Understand frequency and severity of risks
• Streamline risk assessment processes
• Measure impact of targets mitigations

Data Governance also took a central conference place because in the age of AI, Data Governance takes on an even more critical, central & important role. Watch the session 'Secure and govern your data estate with Microsoft Purview' BRK317 that covers the new security and governance capabilities. 

Successful AI transformation starts with a security-first approach. The new capabilities announced 

Prevent data oversharing and detect insider risks in Microsoft 365 Copilot

• Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) for AI, formerly known as Microsoft Purview AI Hub, is now generally available
• Microsoft Purview DLP for Microsoft 365 Copilot, now in public preview. It enables processing files based on their sensitivity label to restrict Microsoft 365
• Detect and investigate risky AI usage for Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management and Communication Compliance in public preview

Secure and govern custom AI with new capabilities in Purview, Defender, and Azure AI

• Public preview of Microsoft Purview DSPM for AI, Insider Risk Management, and data compliance controls for agents  in Copilot Studio
• AI-Security Posture Management (AI-SPM) in Defender for Cloud is now generally available
• New centralized management and governance controls and risk and safety evaluation for Azure AI Foundry 

And last but not least  AI regulations preparation, such as the EU AI Act with new capabilities in Purview Compliance Manager and Azure AI.

• There are 4 new generally available AI compliance assessment  including the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, and ISO 23894. 
• AI reports in Azure AI in private preview

Further Reading

Data Factory Announcements at Ignite 2024 Recap

Accelerate app innovation with an AI-powered dataplatform

What’s new with AI Azure at MS Ignite

Accelerate AI adoption with next-gen security and governance capabilities

Lots of Purview updates https://lnkd.in/eMFMx_xv at MSIgnite

Safely activate your data estate with Microsoft Purview

The next wave of Azure innovation: Azure AI Foundry, intelligent data, and more

Announcing SQL Server 2025

Delivering 3 trusted platforms for the AI age