Fabric Data Engineering: The Right Replacement for Synapse Analytics?

• When Synapse Analytics Spark Serverless pools eventually retires, customers will have the options of Fabric Data Engineering and Azure Databricks.
• Fabric Data Engineering provides collaboration, data sharing, and integration with other Fabric services, but it lacks some advanced security controls.
• Databricks is more mature with better security and low-level controls for deployment options, but it has fewer integrations with other Azure services.
• Synapse Analytics customers should evaluate destinations and remember they can deploy to both services and leverage the strengths of each.

Fabric Data Engineering is an evolution of Synapse Analytics Spark serverless pools, which it eventually will replace. Fabric Data Engineering is one of the main Fabric services that includes a Spark-based environment where data engineers can collect, store, cleanse, and process data and ultimately implement orchestrated processes to provide that data to other solutions. (Note: Microsoft sometimes still refers to Fabric Data Engineering as Fabric Synapse Data Engineering.) While the Synapse Analytics service is not in immediate danger of discontinuation, customers should not wait for a retirement announcement. Instead, they should be evaluating possible replacements. In Azure, there are two good options: Fabric Data Engineering, which is the replacement for Synapse Analytics, and Azure Databricks, which provides a similar Spark-based data engineering and lakehouse solution. There are advantages and trade-offs with both services, and for some customers, the best solution will be deploying both solutions and relying on built-in capabilities to control data access.