Using Azure Data Explorer To Explore OneLake

Data Fabric

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

Where To Obtain The URL

Pretty easy this one.

  1. Log onto Fabric
  2. Browse to a Workspace that has a Lakehouse created (or create a new Lakehouse)
  3. 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/Files

Delete the /Files suffix. We are left with

https://onelake.dfs.fabric.microsoft.com/4c86a3f6-bff1-485e-bb29-353eeca17a1a/54cf3575-1824-48a3-8eed-090c97f0101b

Its 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.

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