Azure Data Factory

Andrew analyzes and writes about Microsoft's data management, business intelligence, and machine learning solutions, as well as aspects of licensing... more

Azure Data Factory (ADF) is a managed cloud service for building and running extract, transform, and load (ETL) and extract, load, and transform (ELT) processes across on-premises systems, third-party database and SaaS services, and Azure data services. Customers assemble pipelines of activities in a graphical designer, reach data through linked services and integration runtimes, transform it with Spark-backed data flows or external compute, and schedule the result with triggers.

Product: Azure Data Factory

Licensing: Azure Data Factory

Near-Term Updates and Roadmap (2026–2027)

ADF is a maintenance-stage service. Microsoft stopped most significant feature work in mid-2024 to concentrate on Fabric Data Factory (FDF), and nearly all 2026 development has gone into tooling that moves customers off ADF rather than into new capability within it. Additionally, a preview that runs SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) packages directly in Fabric weakened the strongest remaining reason to stay on ADF.

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