Welcome to your journey in creating your first Microsoft Fabric Capacity! This guide will walk you through the steps you need to take to set up your Fabric capacity seamlessly. It’s an exciting process, and by the end, you’ll be ready to supercharge your data capabilities.
Getting Started in the Azure Portal
To begin, we need to head over to the Azure portal. You might wonder why we are starting here. Well, Microsoft Fabric is now an Azure resource, which means all initial setups must be done in the Azure environment.
Check Your Tenant and Subscription
First things first, ensure you’re in the correct tenant or directory where your Fabric instance resides. In my case, I’m in the “Guy in a Cube” tenant. If you find yourself in a different directory, simply click on “Switch Directory” to navigate to the right one.
Next, you need an active subscription. Azure resources are tied to a subscription, which can either be a pay-as-you-go plan or an agreement subscription. Make sure you have a subscription that allows you to create resources.
Creating a Resource Group
To keep things organized, it’s a good idea to create a resource group specifically for this project. I already have a couple of resource groups, but for this demonstration, let’s create a new one.
Start by selecting the appropriate subscription for your resource group. I’ll name this one “video demo”. It’s also essential to choose the region where you want this resource group to be created. I recommend aligning this with your home region for Fabric, which is the primary data region Fabric defaults to.
Identifying Your Home Region
If you’re unsure about your home region, you can verify it by going to Fabric, clicking on the question mark icon, and selecting “About Fabric”. Here, you’ll see your home region listed. In my case, it’s “West US”.
Creating Your Fabric Capacity
Now that we have our resource group, it’s time to create the Fabric capacity itself. Navigate back to the resource group you just created, and click on “Create Resource”. You’ll find Microsoft Fabric listed there. Let’s select it!
As you create the capacity, ensure it’s aligned with the subscription we’ve chosen earlier and specify the resource group. You’ll also need to give your capacity a name. I’ll go with “Video Capacity”. Once again, we’ll stick with the West US region for consistency.
Choosing the Right Size
When creating a capacity, you have various SKUs available. For those just getting started, I recommend the F2 capacity, which is perfect for testing. If you’re looking for something more robust, the F64 SKU is equivalent to a P1 in premium capacities.
Deployment and Verification
After selecting your options, review everything and hit “Create”. This process will only take a few seconds. Once the deployment is complete, you’ll see your Fabric capacity listed in the resource group.
Verify that the capacity is active and check the SKU to ensure it’s what you intended. In this case, I have an F2 capacity.
Exploring the Fabric Portal
Now that we have our Fabric capacity set up in the Azure portal, let’s switch over to the Fabric portal to continue our journey. Here, you can manage and monitor your capacities effectively.
Managing Capacities
In the Fabric portal, navigate to the admin portal under capacities. You’ll see all of your Fabric capacities listed. Some may be grayed out if they are paused. In my case, three of them are paused, while the one we just created is active.
Using a pay-as-you-go plan allows you to pause capacities when they’re not in use, helping you save costs. If you have a development environment, consider pausing it after hours when it’s not needed.
Adjusting Capacity Settings
Let’s pause our new “Microsoft Fabric Capacity” for now. Once we return to the admin portal, we can see that it is now paused. If you need to turn it back on, it’s just a matter of clicking the button, and it will show active again.
Assigning User Permissions
With the capacity active, you can now assign users to it. You can also set contributor permissions for others who need access to this capacity for their workspaces.
Creating Workspaces
Now, let’s create a new workspace. I’ll name it “Workspace Capacity ” because I excel at naming things! When creating the workspace, you’ll need to select the Fabric capacity you just set up. Remember, only active capacities will appear in this list.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it! You’ve successfully created your first Microsoft Fabric Capacity and set up a workspace. While it may seem like a lot of steps, once you get the hang of it, it becomes second nature.
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