What Is Mirroring in Fabric?

Let’s face it, the best decisions come from the most up-to-date data. If you’re using last week’s (or even yesterday’s) data for decisions, you’re already behind. Do you ever wish your data would update automatically the second your data changes? In Microsoft Fabric, mirroring helps make that happen. It brings your data from various sources into a central analytics platform and continuously replicates data into Fabric’s OneLake in near real time, and in a format that’s query-ready for analytics.

But mirroring needs to be set up the right way to ensure it works properly. That’s where Microsoft Fabric consulting comes in. A good consultant will guide you through design, implementation, and optimization to make sure mirroring works the way it should behind the scenes. Fewer headaches for you and more time to focus on turning your data into insights. In this blog, we’ll dig deeper into what it is and how it can be a key player in your data strategy.

Why Should Decision Makers Care About Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric?

Data modernization is becoming a must-have rather than a ‘sounds like it could be a good idea’. It transforms your outdated systems into scalable, efficient, and secure platforms that can handle the tons of data we generate daily. A data strategy consultant can develop a data modernization strategy that unlocks your data’s full potential, driving better decision-making, improving operational efficiency, and keeping you agile and innovative to stay ahead of the competition.

So, how does mirroring in Microsoft Fabric fit in? Mirroring streamlines access and integration of operational data into analytics tools by replicating data from a variety of sources into Fabric’s unified data lake, OneLake, in near real-time. Mirroring eliminates data silos and centralizes access for analytics, reporting, BI, and AI. Even better, it gives you data that’s ready for analysis and minimizes traditional ETL, to empower you with faster insights.

Traditional data integration can fall short. Spoiler alert: it’s not just about speed, but with challenges like siloed data, inconsistent data formats, poor quality, and scalability. In addition, modern data integration processes can struggle with legacy systems—another good reason to work with a seasoned consultant.

Fabric mirroring can impact strategic outcomes by improving data management, streamlining operations, and giving you real-time access for fast insights that maximize ROI. It replaces the ‘extract’ and ‘load’ (EL) parts of traditional ETL processes, saving you time, effort, and resources spent on traditional data movement. Plus, mirroring storage is free up to a certain limit based on your purchase capacity SKU.

Expert consulting services (like ours) ensure you understand any limitations and costs up front, so you’ll get the most bang for your buck (and no surprises). Partnering with a consultant vs. a DIY approach? That’s a no-brainer. With deep Fabric expertise and proven best practices, a consultant will develop an implementation plan that sets you up for success.

What Is Fabric Mirroring?

In the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem, mirroring provides continuous replication of data and moves that data from the source into OneLake. Fabric mirroring supports database mirroring for a wide range of data sources, including Azure SQL DB, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Cosmos DB, and Snowflake.

Mirroring gives you one unified platform for data analysis in Power BI. Even better, since it handles part of the ETL process, it allows for faster data ingestion into Power BI, enabling near real-time and business-ready analytics way faster. Effective mirror implementation isn’t plug and play, though. When you leverage P3 Adaptive’s expertise, we can have you up and running in less time than you think (and with much fewer headaches).

Fabric Mirroring vs. Log Shipping: What’s the Real Difference?

Fabric mirroring and log shipping are both for data replication but serve much different purposes. Fabric mirroring is about replicating data into OneLake for analytics. Log shipping, on the other hand, is a disaster recovery solution, providing regular backups of transaction logs from a primary SQL Server database and restoring them to secondary databases. A Microsoft Fabric consultant can help you to understand and implement both as needed for your use cases. Here’s a look at some other key differences: 

Speed

• Fabric mirroring could be the winner here with its near-real-time replication and very low latency. It has very little impact on the source database due to its continuous replication process.
• With log shipping, you’ll get some latency delays (often a few minutes). The upside? It has a lower performance impact on the primary server. If you’re OK with a little lag time, it works fine.

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

• Fabric mirroring gives you near-zero RPO for virtually no data loss. Great for your mission-critical workloads that need continuous data synchronization.
• With log shipping, RPO depends on how often you back things up (with RPO anywhere from minutes to hours). A couple of perks: It does support delayed restores, which can save headaches caused by logical errors, and it can keep multiple copies on standby.

Administrative Overhead

• Fabric mirroring is a simpler setup (with the right guidance, of course) and no need for complex ETL pipelines. Plus, it automatically configures support data, needs minimal maintenance, and has built-in monitoring in the Fabric portal.
• Log shipping takes a bit more ‘rolling up your sleeves’. It needs manual setup of backup, copies, and restore jobs, ongoing SQL Server Agent job management, and manual failover if something goes wrong unexpectedly.

Data Reliability & Business Continuity

• Fabric mirroring keeps a constantly updated copy in Fabric’s OneLake—your data is there even if the source goes down. If an outage happens? No worries, analytics and reporting won’t miss a beat.
• Log shipping keeps standby copies for disaster recovery, but you’ll need to manually failover and restore to the last backup point. Great for planned maintenance and point-in-time recovery, but it’s not instant.

Yep, it’s a lot to think about, but again, an experienced consultant will be your best friend here.

Fabric mirroring sounds incredible, right? So, where does it fit in modern data architecture? It really changes the game for modern data architecture by simplifying data integration, empowering real-time analytics, and making operational data easy to access across the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem. Plus, by minimizing the need for traditional ETL, you can more quickly put your data to work for better (and faster) decisions.

Fabric Mirroring vs. Shortcuts: Which One for Your Data Strategy?

Within Microsoft Fabric, mirroring and shortcuts both provide data management and access, but are a bit different. As you now know, mirroring creates a copy of your data in OneLake. Shortcuts create a virtual link to external data (like Azure Data Lake Storage, Google Cloud Storage, or Dataverse), but keep the data where it is, allowing Fabric to access external data without physically copying it.

With mirroring, your data is stored locally, so it’s ready to access for Fabric workloads. Mirroring is great for fast queries and analytics, storing historical data, and deep integration with various workloads in Fabric. Shortcuts let you create live connections to your external sources for real-time access to the source. This can mean lower storage costs due to less storage usage, but performance can be slower depending on network speed and the size of the dataset. Shortcuts can be ideal for lightweight access to large external datasets and hybrid cloud scenarios.

How do you know when to use each? Use mirroring when you want a local, up-to-date copy of data for fast analytics and top-notch performance in Fabric. Shortcuts come in handy when you want a quick way to access and work with data without the overhead of replicating data. If you’re not familiar with either of these, reach out to the P3 Adaptive folks. We know how to use these features in a complementary way, helping you choose the best approach based on your specific data access and performance needs.

What Is Mirror Work in Fabric, Really?

Setting up and managing mirrors in Fabric takes expertise; that’s where a consultant comes in. They’ll be sure you have a Fabric workspace backed by premium capacity and a supported data source. Then they’ll configure mirroring to fit your needs, whether that means mirroring all existing data or select tables, or maybe setting up automatic mirroring of new tables as they’re created. Consulting can also keep an eye on replication so tables stay in sync.

As for managing mirrors, a consultant will flag limitations like unsupported data types and database size, and make sure your team knows how to check replication status to ensure data is up-to-date. An experienced consultant will also set up proper permissions for both the mirrored database and its SQL analytics endpoint, along with sharing permissions of mirrored data to control who gets access. Open mirroring is another option a consultant may consider if more flexibility is needed, letting you land data in a landing zone and replicate it from there.

Real-Time Access, Minimized ETL Hassle

Mirroring works to make your life a little easier by integrating with Azure SQL, Databricks, and Dataverse by minimizing the headaches of traditional ETL, giving you near real-time access to your data. With Azure SQL, you can replicate databases into OneLake for real-time analytics, reporting, and AI. You can also create a mirrored database from Azure Databricks, providing a real-only, continuously replicated copy of your Azure Databricks into OneLake. And with Dataverse, Microsoft Fabric Link creates secure, shortcut connections to Dynamics 365 and Power Apps data, and enables advanced analytics. P3 Adaptive’s expert consultants can help set up these integrations to get faster access to the freshest data, helping to speed up insights for decisions. And we’ll help you avoid common pitfalls.

Fabric Mirroring Roadmap, Limitations, and Cost: What’s Coming and What to Watch For

Nothing’s perfect, right? Fabric mirroring does have some limitations to be aware of (again, a consultant can help you to work around those). Limitations include restrictions on SQL Server features like change data capture (CDC), which can be fixed by disabling CDC or replication before mirroring or considering alternative data ingestion methods.

Fabric mirroring has a limit of 500 tables that can be mirrored; if you need to mirror more than that, you’ll have to choose the most important ones for mirroring or use other data integration approaches for the remaining tables. Another challenge is that large-scale data changes (as in billions of records) can be slow to mirror. In this case, it’s better to stop and restart mirroring. A consultant can help you navigate these and any other limitations.

OK, let’s talk about cost. Mirroring can be very cost-effective thanks to free storage (up to your capacity limit). But some cost considerations to keep in mind are exceeding that limit, running analytics on mirrored data, or pausing capacity, which can kick up costs. How can you gain the most value? By staying within your Fabric capacity for free replication compute and storage (which can cover a large amount of data). The meter runs when extra storage is needed, when mirrored data is accessed from other tools or regions, and when capacity fees continue even if you’re not actively running mirroring.

What’s ahead for mirroring? Microsoft is committed to making mirroring in Fabric the easiest way to bring data into Fabric. The roadmap ahead focuses on expanding data source support (including Oracle and SQL Server 2025) and enhancing existing features. Microsoft is also looking to expand region support to optimize performance and to make improvements to Open Mirroring. Our best advice for budgeting? Tap into P3 Adaptive’s smarts, and we’ll work with you to keep you within budget and on track for the future.

Making Fabric Mirroring Work for Your Business

Fabric mirroring can play an important role in your data strategy. With the right guidance, you can align mirroring with your goals. A Power BI consultant can help you tap into mirroring in Fabric and use that real-time data to develop insightful, dynamic reports and dashboards. Decision-makers can make decisions based on real-time, reliable data (not gut feelings). Faster insights = better, more confident decisions. Decisions that can keep your business agile and ready to seize new opportunities that drive the growth you need to stay ahead of your competition.

If you want to make Fabric mirroring work for your business, we’re the people to talk to. Our expert consultants partner with you to build a data strategy that moves you forward, fast. We love data—we’ll show you how to unlock its power. There’s no need to go it alone. Together, we got this—saving you time, trouble, and budgetary headaches.