22-25 April 2026 
Navigating Microsoft Fabric: A Practical Guide to Tool Selection
Proposed session for SQLBits 2026TL; DR
Learn which tools in Fabric to use and when. No coding knowledge required.
This session will cover:
- Delta, Parquet, and Onelake
- SQL vs. Spark:
- Notebooks vs. Dataflows vs. Pipelines
- Warehouses vs. Lakehouses:
Session Details
Microsoft Fabric is a lake-centric data analytics platform. All data items, like warehouses and lakehouses, store their data automatically in OneLake in Delta format. But which tools should you use, and when?
This session will cover:
- The underlying storage: Delta, Parquet, and columnar storage explained simply
- SQL vs. Spark: when to use each
- Notebooks vs. Dataflows vs. Pipelines: choosing the right approach
- Warehouses vs. Lakehouses: understanding the tradeoffs
This session requires no prior coding knowledge and covers terminology at an introductory level so you won’t get left behind. Ideal for data engineers, analysts, and IT staff looking to optimize storage and performance within Fabric.
This session will cover:
- The underlying storage: Delta, Parquet, and columnar storage explained simply
- SQL vs. Spark: when to use each
- Notebooks vs. Dataflows vs. Pipelines: choosing the right approach
- Warehouses vs. Lakehouses: understanding the tradeoffs
This session requires no prior coding knowledge and covers terminology at an introductory level so you won’t get left behind. Ideal for data engineers, analysts, and IT staff looking to optimize storage and performance within Fabric.
3 things you'll get out of this session
Understand storage - Delta, Parquet, and Onelake
Lear which ingestion and transformation tool to use and when
Understand architecture decisions in Fabric
