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Introduction — Why Ingestion Is the Hardest Part of Analytics

Data ingestion is the foundation of every analytics system. Without reliable ingestion, everything collapses: pipelines break, dashboards fail, ML models drift, and business decisions become unreliable.

Fabric solves ingestion with two powerful tools:

• Pipelines — enterprise‑grade orchestration
• Dataflows Gen2 — low‑code transformation for business users

Together, they form the ingestion backbone of Fabric.

1. Pipelines — The Enterprise Ingestion Engine

Fabric Pipelines are built for enterprise‑grade orchestration.

Capabilities

• Scheduled ingestion
• Copy activities
• Data movement
• Parameterization
• Error handling
• Retry logic
• Monitoring
• Logging
• Notifications

Why Pipelines Matter

• They replace ADF for Fabric workloads
• They integrate directly with OneLake
• They support medallion architecture
• They support shortcuts
• They support Delta Lake

Pipelines are the backbone of Bronze ingestion.

2. Dataflows Gen2 — Low‑Code Transformation

Dataflows Gen2 allow business users to build transformations without writing code.

Capabilities

• Power Query transformations
• Direct write to OneLake
• Delta Lake output
• Scheduled refresh
• Parameterization
• Reusable logic

Why Dataflows Matter

• Empower business users
• Reduce engineering workload
• Standardize transformations
• Integrate with Lakehouses
• Support medallion architecture

Dataflows Gen2 are perfect for Silver transformations.

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