Direct Lake semantic models

Microsoft Fabric introduced a new semantic model called Direct Lake. This semantic model is built in the Fabric (Power BI) service under a lakehouse or warehouse artifact. The warehouse structure is for those familiar with T-SQL and the lakehouse is for those developers using code such as Python in notebooks for ETL implementations. Both create and support what are called Delta tables. The best resource for understanding the properties of Delta tables is from Databricks: (https://docs.databricks.com/en/delta/index.html).

Using Delta tables in Fabric

Delta tables can be created and populated in Fabric or used in Fabric as a shortcut. Inside a warehouse or lakehouse, Delta tables can be linked to the Fabric artifact through a pointer in Fabric called a shortcut rather than to the files or table structure. Figure 5.10 shows the Delta Table and shortcut (two types), which have different icons.

Figure 5.10 – Shortcut icon...