DP-600 key terms

A pool of compute resources in Microsoft Fabric, bought at a specific SKU, that powers every workload in the workspaces assigned to it. It can be scaled or paused, and usage is tracked in capacity units.

A shared container in Fabric where items such as lakehouses, warehouses and semantic models are created and organized. Access is controlled through roles that grant admin, member, contributor or viewer rights.

A logical grouping of workspaces that mirrors a business area of an organization, used to delegate administration and improve data discovery. Domains tag workspaces for governance; they do not move or copy items.

A Fabric feature that promotes content through ordered stages, typically development, test and production, by comparing workspace items and copying them forward. It supports selective deployment and shows what differs between stages.

A workspace setting that connects Fabric items to a Git repository so changes are tracked as commits. Teams sync workspace updates to a branch and deploy from source control instead of editing only in the portal.

A label on a Fabric or Power BI item that signals trust. Promoted is any user's informal mark, while Certified requires permission and identifies an approved, authoritative semantic model or report.

A Microsoft Purview classification, such as Confidential, applied to Fabric items. Labels travel with exported files and can enforce encryption and access restrictions beyond workspace permissions.

One of Admin, Member, Contributor or Viewer, assigned to a user or group in a workspace, that decides whether the person can manage the workspace, edit items, or only view content.

The single, tenant-wide logical data lake behind Fabric. Each workspace gets its own folder, and all engines, including Spark, SQL, KQL and Power BI, read the same Delta, Parquet or CSV files stored there.

A Fabric item that combines Delta-table storage with a SQL analytics endpoint for read-only T-SQL queries. It supports Spark notebooks, pipelines and shortcuts over files held in OneLake.

A Fabric item offering a full T-SQL relational engine with write support, multi-table transactions and cross-database queries over Delta tables stored in OneLake, aimed at structured, governed reporting data.

A OneLake pointer to data held elsewhere, such as another lakehouse, ADLS Gen2, Amazon S3 or Dataverse, that appears as a local folder. Files are read in place; nothing is copied.

Continuous, near-real-time replication of an external source such as SQL Server, Snowflake or Azure SQL Database into OneLake as Delta tables, configured with little or no code.

An orchestration item containing activities such as Copy, Notebook, Dataflow or Stored procedure, run on a schedule or trigger, that moves and transforms data. It is Fabric's counterpart to Azure Data Factory pipelines.

A Power Query-based transformation item that runs in the cloud and writes results to a lakehouse, warehouse, KQL database or other destination. It uses the Power Query Online editor and the M language.

An interactive document of Spark code in PySpark, Spark SQL, Scala or R, with markdown cells and an attached lakehouse, used for exploration and for loading or transforming Delta tables.

An open table format that layers a transaction log over Parquet files, providing ACID transactions, schema enforcement and time travel. It is the default table format for Fabric lakehouses and warehouses.

A layered data-design pattern in which bronze holds raw ingested data, silver holds cleansed and conformed tables, and gold holds business-ready star schemas. Each layer adds quality and structure.

A Fabric item that stores data for the Kusto engine and is queried with Kusto Query Language. It is tuned for append-only event, log and telemetry data and supports streaming ingestion.

A Fabric item that captures real-time events from sources such as Event Hubs or Kafka, optionally reshapes them with a no-code processor, and routes the output to a destination item.

The distributed compute engine behind Fabric notebooks and Spark job definitions. Fabric runs Spark sessions against lakehouses and reads and writes Delta tables stored in OneLake.

A metadata layer defining tables, columns, relationships, measures and security that reports query. Formerly called a dataset, it can store data in Import, DirectQuery or Direct Lake mode.

A semantic model storage mode that reads Delta tables in OneLake directly, avoiding both import copies and generated SQL. It gives import-like speed with fresher data and falls back to DirectQuery when limits are exceeded.

A semantic model storage mode in which data is copied into an in-memory column store at refresh. Queries are fastest, but the data is only as current as the last successful refresh.

A semantic model storage mode that leaves data at the source and translates each visual's query into native source queries at run time. It suits very large or fast-changing sources but can respond more slowly.

A model design with a central fact table of measurable events joined to surrounding dimension tables of descriptive attributes. Relationships stay one-to-many, which keeps DAX fast and predictable.

A DAX expression evaluated at query time within the filter context of a visual, such as SUM(Sales[Amount]). Measures are not stored in the model and aggregate data dynamically.

A DAX expression that adds a column to a table, computed row by row and stored during refresh. It increases model size and is best kept for slicing or building relationships.

A model link between two tables, usually one-to-many on a key column, that propagates filters from the dimension side to the fact side. Cardinality and cross-filter direction control how filters flow.

Model roles containing DAX filter expressions that limit which rows a user can see when querying a semantic model, applied to reports, Excel and other client tools.

A semantic model configuration that hides specified tables or columns from a role, so those users cannot query the hidden objects even through DAX or external tools.

A refresh policy that partitions a table by a date range so only new or changed periods are processed while older partitions remain in place. It shortens refresh time and reduces source load.

A pre-aggregated table mapped to columns of a detail table so Power BI answers summary queries from the smaller table and sends other queries to the detail source. It accelerates large models.

A read-write interface that lets external tools such as Tabular Editor, DAX Studio or SQL Server Management Studio connect to a semantic model for scripting, deployment and advanced administration. Write access needs Fabric or Premium capacity.

The expression language of Power BI semantic models, used for measures, calculated columns, calculated tables and security filters. It works on tables and filter context rather than on individual cells.

An interface in Power BI Desktop and Fabric for writing and running DAX queries against a model, previewing the results, and defining measures that can be published back to the model.

A report page configured with field wells so a user can right-click a data point and open a detail page filtered to that specific item.

The data-preparation engine and editor used in Dataflow Gen2 and Power BI Desktop. It records transformation steps in the M language and re-applies them on each refresh.

A bridge that lets cloud services reach on-premises or private-network data sources, installed either in personal mode for one user or as an enterprise gateway on a server.