When creating solutions with Synapse, I got used to working with Azure Storage Explorer to view the underlying Data Lake and work with ACLs. Although Fabric has interfaces for working with ACLS (that you should use), its always interesting to see what’s going on under the hood.
You’ll need some stuff
- Azure Storage Explorer – download from Azure Storage Explorer – cloud storage management | Microsoft Azure. N.B The installation will prompt you to download .net 8 if you don’t already have it.
- The URL relating to a fabric workspace. This is described in the next section.
Where To Obtain The URL
Pretty easy this one.
- Log onto Fabric
- Browse to a Workspace that has a Lakehouse created (or create a new Lakehouse)
- Select either the Files or Tables node then select Properties from the sub menu.
The URL will be displayed on the pop up dialog.
The URL is structured similar to
https://onelake.dfs.fabric.microsoft.com/4c86a3f6-bff1-485e-bb29-353eeca17a1a/54cf3575-1824-48a3-8eed-090c97f0101b/FilesDelete the /Files suffix. We are left with
https://onelake.dfs.fabric.microsoft.com/4c86a3f6-bff1-485e-bb29-353eeca17a1a/54cf3575-1824-48a3-8eed-090c97f0101bIts this that we’ll need for the next steps.
Using Azure Data Explorer To Explore OneLake
Fire up Azure Storage Explorer and select the Account Management icon. Select Sign in with Azure.
Once you’ve been through the authentication wizard and provided your Azure login credentials, your tenant will be added and you can then choose to Attach a resource.
Select the option for ADLS GEN2 container or directory.
Sign in using Oath.
Select the account and tenant.
In the next screen, give the connection a display name and provide the shortened URL from the section above.
On the final screen, select the Connect button. If all has gone well, you should be looking at the guts of your Lakehouse.
Lets Test It
Upload a file to test with
We can see the Files by expanding the /Files path.
And if we load that test file to a table
We can see the Delta Log and parquet files
Final Thoughts
Its useful to know what’s going on underneath the hood, and although it shouldn’t be necessary to drop down to ADLS to fix things, with the rapid release cycle of Fabric functionality, you never know when you may need to.