How Do You Use Microsoft Fabric Domains? – Ep. 347
Domains in Microsoft Fabric help you organize content, standardize ownership, and make discovery easier — but they also add a new layer to how teams think about governance. In this episode, Mike, Tommy, and Seth talk through when domains help, what to watch out for, and how to roll them out without creating chaos.
News & Announcements
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Main Discussion
Microsoft Fabric domains are designed to improve organization and discoverability by grouping workspaces and items into business-aligned buckets (finance, sales, operations, etc.). The conversation covers:
- What domains are (and what they are not)
- When domains help: large tenants, many workspaces, and mixed ownership
- How domains fit with existing governance patterns (naming conventions, deployment pipelines, and ownership)
- The common pitfalls: over-structuring too early, unclear domain ownership, and “set it and forget it” taxonomy
Looking Forward
If you’re rolling out Fabric domains, start with a small number of business-aligned domains, assign clear owners, and iterate as teams adopt the structure. The goal is better discovery and accountability — not another layer of bureaucracy.
Episode Transcript
0:33 [Music] good morning and welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with Tommy Seth and Seth and Mike oh boy the software updates itself but does it throw me for a loop holy smokes I’m struggling this morning the the application we Ed to stream all of our our video is for some whatever reason they decided some genius decided to update their UI and I can’t find any of the buttons the whole flow of stream things is totally different it throws me for a total
1:03 throws me for a total Loop happy Tuesday gentlemen it’s not happy it is not happy a harsh happy Tuesday it is rough man our main topic for today will be talking about domains the article we’ll throw a little article here in inside the the chat window as well for Microsoft fabric domains just thinking through how do you leverage domains how to unpack them what what does it mean for your organization and when would be a good time to use them so I’ll throw that here as well for those who want to just follow
1:33 those who want to just follow along and read up on the article it’s it’s actually a pretty short read it’s not a very long article from Microsoft but it does give a good feature overview of what a domain is all right jumping back in here quick updates or announcements any news items here I have one but I’ll let to see if any else has first if you’re a government worker or work in the government cloud of powerbi yeah there’s a huge announcement the admin monitoring
2:04 announcement the admin monitoring workspace is now available in those what this what this reminds me of is how they can stop counting beans I’m I’m Jo like I obviously do not work in the government Cloud I’ve had this for a long time it reminds me of when power first came out and they still supported on powerbi report server right yes and and they they ride for a while I think to keep pushing all the cloud cloud
2:35 to keep pushing all the cloud cloud features into Power VI report server because people were still wanting the on Prem version yes and it was just like Yay cuz we’re like months past the new feature and everybody’s using it and then all of a sudden it’s like cool but anyway that’s really that’s you cool but anyway that’s really that’s that’s really mean of me because know that’s really mean of me because there are probably a bunch of people that work in the government cloud and I I just they’re thrilled to see it anyway they’re thrilled to see it it’s good good to see it I can tell where you sit on the government side of things all right wow unfair
3:07 right wow unfair unfair no it’s just it’s just one of those things where it’s like oh it’s not my problem because I don’t have I don’t have to work in that Arena well my understanding is the government Cloud I understanding is the government Cloud they get their powerbi tenant is mean they get their powerbi tenant is entirely separate tenant it is in totally it is a totally different interface it’s it’s it’s its own data center they’ve got their own lockdown data center that is just there there’s a there’s a government tenant that is just for their stuff which makes total sense because they can’t be in the public Cloud I would imagine that the level of scrutiny or things that have to
3:38 level of scrutiny or things that have to go through things are are counted way anything was implemented yes I will say this too I I’ve also used the argument sometimes companies will come to us say hey we can’t use your powerbi thing it’s in the cloud we don’t we don’t do that I’m like well okay I understand I I hear your point I could totally see that a policy in your company and then I bring up a couple things do you realize you already have SharePoint online and they’re like yeah like that’s already in the cloud
4:08 yeah like that’s already in the cloud you trust that already and I 365 exactly exactly and then I and then I go okay so that one you’re already in the cloud on but you trust that one and that’s okay and then we would then you that’s okay and then we would then explore well we we would know explore well we we would never put financial data on there that that’s just not really you heard of excel online exactly there’s a couple arguments to to make you to to bring it towards a place where it’s probably it’s probably fine
4:39 where it’s probably it’s probably fine probably fine we can’t have we can’t have people logging in and seeing data on the on the inter internet in the internet browser you you’d rather them do what they’re doing right now which is send it via untraceable email yes exactly down download it and use personal email accounts sure kidding that never happens that never happens that never that never occurs it’s never published Punchy jabbing this morning like I like the way this the tone of this is going let’s keep it up all right
5:09 this is going let’s keep it up all right well well if we’re doing Punchy jabby I don’t know what inspired me but every so often I’ll go to the Microsoft blog and then I’ll go click over to there’s a page on there where you can go click into downloading powerbi desktop and just so happened yesterday I found oh look at this RBI desktop just created a new version so I went I went to the I went down to the website I went Advanced options I downloaded parv desktop I even tweeted it on Twitter and said hey look a new
5:40 it on Twitter and said hey look a new version is of desktop is here I downloaded the application I ran it I have borked my RBI desktop I cannot open any files with it I don’t know if if I turn on a preview feature or something that’s just not happy but when I downloaded it I brought on my computer I have an error it will not load I don’t know what’s going on so I’m I’m in the process of like deleting it restarting it I have another version of the BBI desktop and it works
6:10 version of the BBI desktop and it works from the Microsoft store so if you go like the Microsoft okay and get desktop too from there that one still runs for me I don’t know what happened I don’t know if it’s just my computer or if it’s something bigger than that there’s actually an issue with the build of the application I will also note yesterday the desktop application was released and we still don’t have a Blog about it which is sometimes indicative of someone caught a bug on the way through and it’s
6:40 caught a bug on the way through and it’s getting which is ironic because right before we we started the stream here yeah I was like that that’s crazy because I started diving in and had to do some report work and yesterday and got the hey you’re opening a late older version some of the features might not oh I was like fine I’ll go grab the latest version I do what you do I download load the version so I have it yep and I downloaded one the version yesterday but Mike and I were comparing versions and I must have just gotten the
7:11 versions and I must have just gotten the July release before the August one was released so I was like I’m I’m I’m good man I was smooth sailing yesterday so I don’t know what happened there that was very weird for me and I I I’ll reinstall so just bear with me so what what I would May me caution you or for you listeners of the of the podcast if you go out to Microsoft website and download their version of the installer you may want to just hold off for like a day or two and just wait for the blog to come out
7:42 just wait for the blog to come out before you download it that might be a wise thing to do or if not hang on to the old one so I’m not sure if anyone else is having issues but if you have any issues let us know in the chat I’d love to wh about it with you you I’d love to wh about it with you what what I what I what know what what I what I what I’ll look forward to is Thursday’s episode episode we either confirm or clarify either this was a widespread issue or pebcak or yeah yep identity I ident error problem exists between keyboard and computer yes
8:13 exists between keyboard and computer yes or id10t error it’s it’s it’s a unique problem that only you have for some reason could have been could have been I made my little noise and hopefully hopefully someone will figure it out well I I I hope so I hope to see a Blog released here pretty soon for the August update yeah I see what’s new exactly awesome anything else we should cover any other any let’s go quickly any beat from the streets anything that you’ve learned in recent consulting or
8:44 you’ve learned in recent consulting or work I will like news bit a precursor because I just saw it this morning but Kratos bi put out a blog or video I got to go check it out he did a comparison between Fabric and data bricks we’re going to be talking about that guarantee so I haven’t read it yet but go go check that out for next episode looking forward to that one I’m I was having a conversation with someone recently and I was indicating the the capabilities of fabric have
9:15 the the capabilities of fabric have quickly turned my eye towards fabric recently in the last couple months and the the I think of it like a spectrum there is I could only use data bricks or I could only use Fabric and I think as as I’m looking at how what projects I could start using more and more towards fabric I’m actually looking at some older projects
9:37 actually looking at some older projects that we’ve done anything around synapse if I used synapse in in in concert with powerbi I’m immediately going yeah I don’t want synaps anymore I’m going to see those projects are an immediate let’s go get fabric for those projects immediately there’s nothing in synaps that fabric can’t do I think at this point so I’m actually reviewing some older projects and modernizing them by bringing them into fabric a bit more saving a bit of money because it all lives in one ecosystem instead of having to pay the synapse people and then the
10:07 to pay the synapse people and then the data bricks people and then the powerbi people so trying to really delineate that between different environments we’re getting much better experiences there I think cost consolidation or at least yeah yeah make it hopefully simpler well it’s it’s this idea of like I’m already paying for fabric even if it runs like honestly it’s like this idea of like I’m if it runs slower I’m already paying for it so why would I pay more for a second or a third tool to do data engineering when
10:38 third tool to do data engineering when I’m already paying a certain amount of spend and okay fine we we compromise a little bit maybe my data loads don’t run as fast as data brick so maybe I don’t have Delta live tables but if it goes from like 30 minutes to an hour hour and a half who cares if I’m now not having to spend money on something like sometimes the loading things I can a lot of what what I do and this is potentially there’s a lot of other businesses out there that do things a lot of what I do is we load every night
11:09 lot of what I do is we load every night of yesterday and older we’re doing historical data loads so if you’re doing that batch processing makes a ton of sense doing it in late in the evening early in the morning things works really well and it doesn’t really matter how long it takes there I’m saying that flippantly though cuz there are needs like hey data better be there by 6 a. m. okay I get it that makes sense so you do have requirements but in that respect there is some flexibility there indeed indeed with that any other
11:42 there indeed indeed with that any other news or beat from the street beat from the from the streets all right I think we’re golden I’m just happy that you guys were on top of versions and powerbi desktop because that yeah we’ll we’ll we’ll wait the blog and of course we’ll talk talk about on our next episode okay sounds good us all right we’ll go with that love it all right moving on let’s go into our main topic today so let’s talk about domains
12:13 today so let’s talk about domains Seth I’m want to pig on you you’ve read through the article I’ve read the article Tommy maybe has read the article Tommy didn’t tell me beforehand if he did or not but that being said Seth give us a quick summary of what is a domain in the context I think this is like context of fabric I it’s I don’t really you probably use this in powerbi TOS it’s it’s fabric domains they they’ve kind domains they they’ve changed our language it’s the of changed our language it’s the it’s really hard to talk about is it a fabric thing or is it a powerbi thing you can use domains in powerbi
12:43 you can use domains in powerbi Pro right or is it only a fabric based thing that’s a great question actually I think it works in both but I think it works more with like it’s kind think it works more with like it’s it feels like it’s geared towards of it feels like it’s geared towards premium things like when you’re using multiple premium SK potentially there some and I think we were even talking about it because you pointed this out in a previous conversation where I was like it’d be great it’ be a great way to organize workspaces that’s what they should build like some work oh oh wait that’s domains that’s and that’s
13:15 wait that’s domains that’s and that’s where I’m going with this one part of this is I’m just trying to think through like how do we leverage this concept of domains and there’s an interesting feature in domains that I haven’t really thought about yet but I’m trying to unpack a little bit around delegating administrative features to The Domain which is interesting yeah so I I think the thing the main thing that they point out in the article is the organizations are shifting from traditional data it Centric organized things right and you get certain access and now it’s
13:46 get certain access and now it’s powerbi is has pushed this boundary and what not only is it providing organization I guess for admins so there’s definitely still an IT Centric bent to this but domains and subdomains allow us to decentralize some of the data architecture right and that’s what the the first opener part of this Tech article States leans into the whole data mesh and decentralization of data architectures Etc But ultimately what
14:17 architectures Etc But ultimately what that means for us is we have some additional security and permission so roles we can assign to domains that start to separate out and give more power to each individualized group as we create this ecosystem for management of our data and infrastructure right so it’s not just all controlled and centralized in the one place now we’re starting to decentralize that or you
14:49 starting to decentralize that or you starting to decentralize that or the way I I like to think about it know the way I I like to think about it is you still have your it admins right they’re just not managing everything in one Silo it’s just when and when you interact with different business areas and groups it it’s almost it’s a much better way to do that because we have the structure of creating ecosystems for them and you just manage in that ecosystem one thing that came up when you mentioned this one is is I Microsoft
15:19 you mentioned this one is is I Microsoft is pointing towards this data mesh methodology and what I get a lot of confusion around and what I try to speak to a little bit is what’s the difference between data mesh and Data Vault I don’t really understand the difference between those two items I hear those I feel like I hear those terms used interchangeably really maybe maybe I don’t maybe I’m maybe I’m misinterpreting that have you heard of the Data Vault thing and how is this how is a data mesh different than a Data Vault is it the same thing the okay so from my understanding
15:53 thing the okay so from my understanding let’s we should Google some of this stuff I’m I’m chat G it right now yeah well typically here here’s here’s my offthe cuff hot take right like from from what I do know right like data mesh is more I think geared towards about being distributed across an organization right like I have separation of different things but at the same time access to everything I need right Data Vault I think is a very specific methodology of how you build models and
16:26 methodology of how you build models and construct the data model itself for generating insights okay so it’s much more Kimble versus Star schema versus I’m going to go the Data Vault route which is wildly different and that’s my understanding of things so if I had to articulate what you’re saying again I’m trying to unpack this a little bit right Data Vault is focusing more on could be still centrally it managed but it’s a very specific way of thinking about building a data structure versus data
16:56 building a data structure versus data mesh is more of like we have domains and there’s going to be multiple domains that potentially will have data and information for them that’s how I understand yeah well so I think I think it’s it’s even before that right I’m separating out my data domains my my data things into different areas but the data is still accessible right yes so for for instance it like that’s the precursor to Data Vault which is a data modeling approach and methodology like
17:27 modeling approach and methodology like I’m creating dimension and facts and different like different things with that data whereas data mesh is the precursor to that you have data in these locations which you’re doing like reshaping for reporting or business intelligence needs what I’m saying at least that’s the way I think I like that I could be wrong but that works for me and that’s that’s actually my interpretation So to that end this is why I think Microsoft brings up this whole
17:57 think Microsoft brings up this whole concept of domains now because domains I think fit this concept of meshes of data right I think the data mesh talks to like hey we have the sales team sets of data we have HR teams of data we have operations teams of data and so while we’re we’re not trying to build silos each team can work on their data as needed in their area their domain essentially and so this is where I think when I look at the feature of domains from fabric domains this makes a lot of
18:28 from fabric domains this makes a lot of sense because a domain and literally the first part of their their key concept here is we want to think about a domain in fabric as being a logical way of grouping together the your data in the organization and when I think about that I I have to think about okay what is my mind as an architect goes immediately towards what does the architectural diagram look like right who are the people that we’re trying to serve with this stuff right and there’s a center of excellence we have that team of leading people making governing choices around the tenant then we have sales operations
18:58 the tenant then we have sales operations whatever these teams are right and there’s subject matter experts in each of those teams and it makes sense that the sales team wouldn’t just have one workspace for everything they need if you’re a bigger organization you’re going to probably have thousands of workspaces like how do you how do you
19:13 workspaces like how do you how do you govern thousands of workspaces and find you might have multiple premium SKS you might have I’ve seen organizations have anywhere between 10 8 to 10 premium subscriptions that are all rolling around their tenant so how do you collect or how do you aggregate okay there’s 10 workspaces or 15 workspaces who needs to own that and I think there’s a lot of a lot of this feels like a lot of this feels very similar to
19:43 a lot of this feels very similar to what we’ve been doing inside inside just getting access to data right we have to have some level of trust between different departments and what by that is Tommy let’s say you’re in charge of the sales team you’re working on getting sales and marketting mat together right that is your domain you’re an expert in that area somewhere the Center of Excellence has to trust Tommy to say look Tommy you’re going to manage who’s in or out of your area like you’re hiring new people you’re letting people go like there’s there’s there’s some turnover there so you need to
20:14 some turnover there so you need to manage okay who is in your work spaces and maybe as Central community of practice we give some guidelines around hey or Coe here’s how we want you to build things you can do prod you can do Dev test prod but really that could be the decision of that domain that team and Tommy’s like yeah I’m super comfortable in fabric we’re not going to have we’re going to have full Dev test prod we’re going to build what we want to build we’ll share here’s how we’re going to share data back to the rest of the organization and so your team can
20:45 the organization and so your team can own everything in your domain right you’re getting the data from Salesforce from LinkedIn from whatever you want you’re pulling all of your marketing data down the website data boom it all comes to your area you can then shape it and use it for your space and this is a big part where the domains and I was trying to look up the the the mesh side of things and that really changes what we’ve thought of security in the past with powerbi up until now and I just did a training last
21:16 until now and I just did a training last week and we’re talking about Works Space Management and collaboration and it’s really the two audiences that it’s always been it’s been consumers it’s really been collaborators or authors the domain feature and I I really want to get into the subdomain feature I think Mike you mentioned that offline to me but really the ability to associate with the workspaces to have that higher level View and that it’s not necessarily just more organization it’s actually what the security side of it is it makes total
21:47 security side of it is it makes total sense sense and especially I was going through this if it was just powerbi would domain still make sense and probably not this is a very fabric feature even if you weren’t you if you were just doing powerbi models and reports domains wouldn’t be nearly as impactful as it would be with all the fabric artifacts I think what’s go ahead Seth no I think what’s interesting is while we talk about this this mesh
22:20 we talk about this this mesh architecture like or separating out the ownership of particular areas it makes a ton of sense but at the same time it doesn’t it doesn’t remove the responsibility from the centralized it team right like and I think that’s where even in initially some of our conversations were going which was oh my gosh like what does this mean like every department needs their own engineers and every like all these things and like where do these roles go and and and where I’m landing now is
22:51 and and and where I’m landing now is like they don’t go anywhere like this is just a in all actuality a better way to organize things for our especially when they’re accessible right so you think about the worlds that we play in all the time it’s just it sometimes it can be a chaotic mess right and you’re you’re still going through these steps to organize and structure data and architect it in a way on the back end well like to me this is a simpler approach of like well I have physical barriers and the structure is
23:23 physical barriers and the structure is in the ecosystem itself that helps me navigate and build Solutions for particular areas or put it in a centralized area because the the the Fantastic approach with this is such that all it requires is me to share or gain access to data locations right where they may live as opposed to having to like rep push it or put it into a different system for accessibility etc etc so I I think it’s like across the
23:56 etc so I I think it’s like across the board I really like the solution because you can separate out costs through the capacity assignment for all these workspaces you can have as many work spaces as you want and there’s multiple levels of or tiers of hey I’m the commercial team but there’s commercial operations there’s commercial whatever there’s go get there’s blah blah blah and all those can be subdomains that don’t need necessarily need different permissions but all roll up under this
24:27 but all roll up under this structure that is managed that you provide security around that you understand costs but you also build closest to the subject matter experts in these workspaces right so it’s almost a a way of I guess separating out what we only used to do on the back end into the the fabric of the fabric of the organization yeah I I like that explanation and and what really what really picks my brain here a
24:58 really what really picks my brain here a little bit around the domains pieces if you read about halfway down the article it starts talking about so it you can have a domain it’s a know you can have a domain it’s a collection of workspaces makes sense you have these sub these have subdomains you can have like a subdomain that lives underneath a bigger domain so you can start having groups and smaller groups inside there cool very interesting but there’s a section halfway down or when you click on it it starts talking about the ability to delegate settings to The Domain level so if you think about who is accessing this information you
25:29 who is accessing this information you can actually delegate or share those settings like for example let’s talk about certification I think certification is a good way to think about this right we have tenant level settings of certification but what you may want is again go going back to our example earlier Tommy you have a department of sales and you want to administer things in the sales department you have a collection of maybe like five to 10 workspaces and you’re managing that team right you’re owning it you’re helping your team build stuff you’re building
25:59 your team build stuff you’re building your own data pipelines whatever whatever you’re doing there at some point Tommy you’re going to say I think we have data that’s clean enough it’s good enough we want to certify it that way the salese or the people that can access that information we want to certify our own internal content for that area and so this is where I think this is a great relationship the center of excellence can decide what is the policy on which teams are which teams are allowed or enabled to be able to certify their own
26:29 enabled to be able to certify their own data what is the criteria that we’re going to use as a standard across organizations that way when the sales team sees certification from Tommy and the the operation seems certified data from Seth we know that that’s gone through the same process there’s the same amount of rigor that’s going through there so I think it’s up to the center of exellence to define those things but that’s a setting you can delegate down to that team and in the admin portal for the settings of
26:59 the admin portal for the settings of your admin settings you can say this feature can be delegated to domains and when you turn that feature on that domain can override a tenant setting for the collection of workspaces that live in that domain and the admin of the domain has the control to turn those things on and off I just want to think on that like I I want you to like really really understand this one this I think is a very powerful feature not sure everyone would to use it but I think I think as
27:30 would to use it but I think I think as you get a bigger organization this is a very useful feature here and I think there’s a lot with the that I’m thinking about both on the to your point the center of excellence and also data governance and the committee on who’s owning the creation and the management of the domains and subdomains right because this is no longer just a it admin or a powerbi tenant level admin who’s responsible for this I’m not I’m not sure if I agree with that I don’t I don’t think I think there’s a difference
28:01 don’t think I think there’s a difference there so if you look at the different roles between the different roles there is a fabric admin and the fabric admin can create or edit domains and then there’s a domain admin that the domain admin basically adds or does not add people to the domain or can manage which workspaces or not which workspaces are there there’s also settings inside the in the admin space and then there’s a domain a domain contributor right so I don’t think I’m worried about I I
28:31 so I don’t think I’m worried about I I still think the creation of the domains is centered in a central team that is your center of excellence they are deciding what domains make the most sense for your organization I don’t think you’re having admins inside the domain creating their own domains they may create their own subdomains but they’re not creating net new domains
28:48 they’re not creating net new domains does that make sense yeah so I think I I’m not sure if I understood your comment because it’s not like you were saying admins of a domain can make new domains no what I was saying is who the ownership in terms of the management of that right the organ like who’s actually creating it is one thing but who decides what domains there should be and what subdomains there should be but that’s the same okay so there’s your question your question is confusing because we answered part of it already Okay right and and I would
29:19 it already Okay right and and I would agree because it was a question I had and who creates the domains or who’s in charge of the structure of them yes and that that should be Co or organiza like a a conversation of how you as an organization are going to structure these to have them make the most sense that is not the administrator the the admin doesn’t care how you structure them he is just he or she’s just in charge of managing the ecosystem that
29:50 charge of managing the ecosystem that they’re told to go build or monitor or control and I think that’s where you’re where you’re mixing the two right where the admin then has to work within this ecosystem and and it could be different like to to Mike’s Point you could like there’s permissioning on domain levels there’s things that we can delegate to domain admins that could override and I I agree I do love that because there may be a department that you want to open up
30:20 be a department that you want to open up a whole bunch of settings yep that or organizationally wise you wouldn’t want right so like totally get that and love it it just on it it adds just another subset level of control that is the ownership or onuses on the admin of whatever so like it it is interesting I guess to me that initially would subdomains be this freefor all maybe as long as all of the tagging and capacity
30:53 long as all of the tagging and capacity and everything rolled up to the domain level I wouldn’t care as much as an admin or or someone who want like is going to utilize that structure for other purposes I. E cost control and where where things are going and understand in the ecosystem where usage is happening then I don’t care if there’s like hey yeah the the commercial team wants to break out five different sets of workspaces to align with their organizational structure like that makes tons of sense yeah and and to be clear
31:25 tons of sense yeah and and to be clear there’s not a lot of things that can be delegated or not so if you if you go into the admin it’s a very it’s interesting CU some things are just forced forced on for example some of the things that are automatically delegated things like data activator a lot of the preview features right so imagine this too right you have a domain you have workspaces being created you want to allow that team do you want them to be able to create data activator things or not do you want them to create
31:56 things or not do you want them to create certain preview features or not that domain potentially should could choose whether or not they want to use those features or not but you may also have the idea that hey that’s not something we’re going to turn on so when you go into the feature for data activator you can go in there and you can enable it but there’s an option that says capacity admins can enable or disable it’s it’s you the delegation setting you can’t change it so it’s there it’s just automatically on by
32:26 there it’s just automatically on by default so it’s interesting to me to see some of these features like if I’m in the admin portal why are you forcing me on these preview features to to lock down the fact that the capacity admin can enable or disable those things by delegate there there’s a bot of there’s a lot of really weird things that are being delegated here and I’m again I’m mixing and matching things here a bit just be clear there’s things that are delegatable at the capacity level and there’s things that are delegatable by the domain level there’s much less delegatable by the domain and domains
32:57 delegatable by the domain and domains look like the the main thing that can be domain delegated is some of your I think it’s git integration whether or not you’re using it or not and whether or not you’re doing certification yeah exactly yeah that makes sense but I just want to be clear about that that there capacity settings and domain settings are two separate things but it’s this really weird vend diagram of like how much of it overlaps does any of it overlaps is is there something that’s going on there too so that’s it’s nice that we have we’re
33:27 that’s it’s nice that we have we’re controls it feels like to me this feature was one really large customer came to Microsoft and said look we’re struggling to manage our tenant can you help us we need collections of workspaces and we need to be able to let them do their own thing so our Central it isn’t always burdened by every little request to certify a data set and I think it feels like what this is was is some large customer came back to so oh yeah stuff says we can easily make you a domain no problem we’ll make these things called domains we’ll group works
33:57 things called domains we’ll group works it together and here you go boom done oh by the way this is a great feature let’s roll it out for everyone because I feel like it’s a bit of a hidden feature that not many companies are using at this point any other thoughts around the article well it it also strikes me as as another way to get yourself in trouble with self-service models right like it how do you mean well what what what is your recommendation who creates domains who who organizes the structure of creation
34:27 who organizes the structure of creation of that them it’s not an I it’s not an admin total admin controlled thing anybody can create it so just the same way you walk in and there are a million workspaces for all the things that aren’t really organized I think what’s great about domains is you can start to organize those workspaces but if all of the teams are doing their own thing and creating their domains and subdomains Etc you like you’ve got a a cleanup to do for
34:58 you’ve got a a cleanup to do for like if that group steps in and says well actually this is the way we need things structured yeah because in a lot of those cases I would argue it’s probably like if like let’s take this use case okay if you walk in and it’s not just a million workspaces it’s a million workspaces and all of these teams has started creating domains and subdomains to contain their workspaces right sure if your job is to architect a better solution my guess is that a lot
35:29 better solution my guess is that a lot of those domains are going to be subdomains and all of the subdomains that are in there are probably going to go away because where a lot of I think daytoday individuals working in reports think about their world in a much more microscopic way like on the micro level instead of macro and domains to me are a macro level thing right I I am building those primarily and you’re talking to a guy talks about cost all the time so it’s like that’s where my
36:00 the time so it’s like that’s where my mind instantly goes yeah ownership right cost the structure of data within an organization those those are all like key yeah I want to use domains I want to use subdomains I want to I want to put some this structure around the organization so it makes sense to roll up all these things that I have to deal with on a daily basis but are also extremely important for the organization to manage to understand to control Etc
36:30 to manage to understand to control Etc right yes so those are two competing like worlds in this ecosystem that I think this just presents Another Touch point where there’s potential friction because yes this is a great ecosystem but of or I should say self-service and the ability for business to interact and learn and engage in these tool sets is is great but there’s always that touch point of like how does it and business work together MH in to produce the best outcomes for the business itself and
37:01 outcomes for the business itself and there’s a mix and it always has to be a mix but you you can get yourself in trouble with even a lot of things related to that self-service model duplication of data many models doing the same things 500 reports that are all returning the same three columns you returning the same three columns etc etc because of a lack of know etc etc because of a lack of structure around how people interact with with data sets because by and large if you talk to business users or you engage with them before they’re even
37:34 engage with them before they’re even really aware of or use business intelligence tools they don’t think about data that the way we do they they think about it in ways in which I I’m gonna get an Excel file I’m G to get a data dump of something I’m gonna you data dump of something I’m gonna right like I just need I just need know right like I just need I just need this the stuff Seth like just give me give me companies and products that’s all I’m looking for MH right but it’s a slice for them and that’s like they compile things in such a way to drive
38:05 compile things in such a way to drive value for themselves they don’t think about reusability of yes repeatability of I can leverage and re and build this thing again if I take the whole slice and then I can dice it in my report it’s just giv me the slice the the very dice piece and that’ll answer
38:25 the very dice piece and that’ll answer my question right now right so I’m just extrapolating like that interaction with the same things of unleashing domains and subdomains into this realm where it’s like oh I’m gonna create Bob’s domain and Sally’s domain like I’m taking to another level right but it’s like well this is these are your brick spaces and now like it it just it’s it’s something to unwind and I think think reinforces why we’re making a recommendation or saying I think that the architecture of domains and
38:56 the architecture of domains and subdomains is a higher level function in terms of a committee or data Centric people and I think in the chat Adrian said data management group 100% right like people who are looking at the the domain of data within an organization they have to have that perspective not the perspective of individualized groups when you’re when you’re structuring it interesting your your comments are bringing up many thoughts that I’m
39:26 bringing up many thoughts that I’m having in my head right now in my mind again I’m I’m I’m thinking like the architecture I love diagrams I’m thinking there’s now if I’m thinking about domains I’m thinking potentially aligning domains to groups of people and one one person may participate in multiple domains maybe as I’m looking at the Domain features there’s this thing called the default domain and what you can do is in the default domain any user assigned to a default domain Group Security Group so again
39:57 domain Group Security Group so again this is all driven by security groups so let’s just imagine we have again back to Tommy’s example here right Tommy’s the marketing team he’s got a a security group that is the marketing team members anytime someone’s added into that security security group and any user of that Security Group if they create a new workspace it’s automatically assigned to The Domain so you you can you can basically bucket teams of people into a domain and say look this Security Group gets this
40:27 say look this Security Group gets this do domain and anyone in that group as they’re creating workspaces automatically by default get tagged and added to the domain because that makes a lot of sense because you don’t want to have a like how many time i’ I’ve seen this where there’s a group of people in a department they’re building things and then no one like well who has access to which workspace well I’m in Tommy’s group we should all have access to the same data that’s that should be a thing and and there’s this lack of availability for us to see what Tommy’s
40:57 availability for us to see what Tommy’s been building because it’s not it’s there’s workspaces being created but I can’t see any of his stuff but we’re in the same Department should she be fine right it’s those mentalities so this is really interesting the default domain setting I think is really impactful and then going back to your comment Seth I really feel like there’s this overarching like Central it data space that it’s like certified data and then there’s now data domains specifically for teams of people again following like maybe the manager structure of ay right there’s
41:28 manager structure of ay right there’s like the manager of central it central it may be building lots of lake houses and tables of data for people and then short cutting them into a workspace where a domain owner can then pick up and do this and then if you think about that as well all of these domains can have individually their own FCS to your point Seth like is my department like I can’t assume that we’re going to use everything 1, 000% efficient all the time that’s that is a false assumption we’re not going to have everyone won’t have amazing deck know Dax knowledge
41:58 amazing deck know Dax knowledge everything won’t be built 100% efficient all the time so there there needs to be flexibility in the system to allow people just to build what they need to get stuff done even if it isn’t efficient however we need to also think about when those inefficient or self-service activities are occurring how is that impacting our Central it of getting data out to the teams right we may not want the same capacity for certified data versus departmental data
42:28 certified data versus departmental data because they may need two separate SKS and that way when the business unit does a bunch of bad things and builds things poorly no problem you only have an f8 skew you’re running out of capacity well let’s go talk about optimizing like you let’s go talk about optimizing like literally give them give them some know literally give them give them some rope do what you need to do and then when you have problems come back and then we can help you optimize manage or kill things that are not not built correctly right you there’s a behavioral I think I think it’s a very good thing to do is let them explore with rails but then re them back in and have a plan to
42:59 then re them back in and have a plan to like okay when things start falling off the rails come back to Central it we help you figure it out when whenever I hear the term give them some rope it usually ends with so they can hang themselves well I’m thinking about like walking a dog on a leash right so you walking a dog on a leash right so I wasn’t I wasn’t trying to hurt know I wasn’t I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone here in this one but I was thinking about sometimes you’re walking your dog and I don’t have one but I’ve seen people do it so I used to have dogs but but when you walk your dogs sometimes you keep the leash very tight
43:29 sometimes you keep the leash very tight because that it can’t handle the situation we’re sniffing every single flower we’re running into different yards there’s other dogs around that you’re going to go get distracted so you keep the leash very short and keep them close to you but at some point you have to say look I’m going to trust you enough that what you’re doing I’m going to let the the length of the leash increase a little bit but you’re not right and I think that that’s it’s such a great point to bring up in the conversation with the default capability because if it you’re not giving them so much so much rope right that they can
44:01 much so much rope right that they can harm themselves correct because ultimately what you’re you’re doing is you’re you’re governing your system the way you want to yes and any actions they take they’re oblivious to the fact that all this is working underneath the scenes correct because you need it to right to your point I’m G to spool up another workspace with throwing more capacity at it and I just like maxed out a a P1 with what doing like yeah that rolls up under the structure that was built what is going on you’re
44:33 that was built what is going on you’re paying for well that’s that’s commercial under the mic subdomain so that’s the guy we need to go talk to I agree and I take my earlier yeah but I think I think this is very to me this is very important to to note here that there needs to be really controls around this that not controls it’s more around the idea of like we’re trying to balance full self service and Central management all in the same place and so this is this is I think a great control mechanism and I really do subscribe to this yeah
45:04 really do subscribe to this yeah if I buy three or four f8s and I need to distribute them per Department great everyone wants to play in fabric no problem let’s figure out how to take that cost of what you need to do in your domain and roll it up to a certain amount okay the price to play the game is th000 bucks a month is that valuable enough for do you want powerbi that much or do you not like let’s really talk about what’s going on here and I think sometimes I hear until there’s better controls or
45:35 hear until there’s better controls or monitoring from Microsoft and I don’t think this is actually existing right now I’m more apt right now to split the SKS into smaller FCS to be able to give people what they need but yet limit them and so we limit our costs so you don’t let our costs run wild if Microsoft had a better method to throttle who was using what or how much of each of each capacity I would be more happy more than happy to buy like one f one F 128 or 125 give it to everyone and start
46:07 125 give it to everyone and start dividing it out for the people that need it right I can’t I I can’t quarantine sections of cores to different teams using that larger skew so because of that I feel like I have to break my SKS into multiple SKS and then give them out by Department which then aligns to breaking them out potentially and giving them by domain because you can set domains every everything on this premium capacity gets this domain which is also very interesting I think as well yeah there’s there’s a portion of this I I need to look into
46:37 portion of this I I need to look into because I’m not familiar yet but I’ll table it and bring it up okay after after I look it up okay sounds good Tommy any other thoughts on your on your land here you’ve been quiet on this on this one you might be on mute there you go yes yes honestly I’m I’m going through the subdomains and going through some of the documentation and this is still very new for for us I think for a lot of
47:08 for for us I think for a lot of organizations we getting into Fabric and just trying to scour the documentation for Best Practices just like they have for like data flows I don’t think they’ve given you that though there’s like there’s almost no best practices here not in there man those come from you Tommy yeah this is this is purely a this is purely a how to how to use the domains I I have to go over to the powerbi adoption road map there might be some implementation planning that talks two two domains and I think that’s the biggest
47:38 domains and I think that’s the biggest thing where we have the in powerbi in the powerbi documentation for adoption and governance and administration that’s pretty spelled out in terms of and and they’ve had security white papers they’ve had governance and you they’ve had governance and getting started with how we have know getting started with how we have from an Enterprise point of view for a long time they used to be PDFs and I’m
48:01 long time they used to be PDFs and I’m just going through this like okay you can cre a domain great they’re telling you how to do that oh cool they’re telling you you can have an image with your domain which is fine but this I think for getting started or just beginning to say hey we’re going to start domains because we have fabric I’m worried about the technical the I think the unknown debt of just running in and saying we’re gonna create domains like how we do workspaces and start giving people access through
48:31 people access through domains without I think some proper guidance I think obviously there’s G to be some testing but this is an awesome an awesome feature both in the it’s really cool but also in the impact and the significance of what this can do yeah so I think the the guidelines of getting started in here that who’s involved is going to be pretty in pretty in yeah and and I agree I it it absolutely
49:01 yeah and and I agree I it it absolutely will be in some cases I’m going to talk about my point that I still need to research because it Michael fortman in the in the chat is is discussing to some of these points he made an earlier comment where he’s saying we were talking about the capacities within the domains right and somebody jumping in and like messing up their entire capacity but he brings up the point not off rope to harm another domain right if I’m using Capac across multiple domains and I have a user that comes in and throws down a gnarly model
49:33 comes in and throws down a gnarly model that just consumes everything yes there could be impacts across domains and the follow-up comment is yes in an organized structure would it be fantastic if we separated out capacities to each domain and maybe that is an approach you could take yes however I think it’s it’s much more likely that you would have multiple domains sharing capacities and the thing I have to research or look at is The Hope being and I think domains would do this is allow me to tag them or understand where the costs are being
50:04 understand where the costs are being driven from and maybe that’s a usage thing yes but it would also be really Keen to understand whether or not any of that tagging would make its way up into Azure cost management because that’s where good point too yes because where where a lot of the monitoring of of things happen is in the Realms that I can tag a cluster right I can tag something within my ecosystem so that as I’m looking at costs within
50:35 so that as I’m looking at costs within Azure related to compute or whatever the case may be that I can separate or filter or group by those those different things now what’s interesting is powerbi has always just been it’s it’s the skew it’s the capacity right so maybe maybe some of this is going to be driven in the administrative reporting where hopefully we’ll have grouping around domains and subdomains of who’s who’s the largest use user of capacity or the most memory and and maybe that’s
51:06 or the most memory and and maybe that’s more of a a logical place to stick the that that type of reporting as opposed to the higher level but my thought was around Azure cost management because I spend a lot of time up in there I I I like what you’re going with that one Seth and I think that’s another one I’m not sure if I see I so two things one I found the article that is in implementation plane there’s a whole section on talking about building domains and what does that look like and I think the idea here is what Microsoft alluding to is the domains are supposed to align to potentially what your
51:36 to align to potentially what your organization domains are looking like right you have domains for Central it you have domains for different departments those domains almost equivocate to what I would say is departments from Michael’s comment in the chat here talking about well yeah two F32 do make sense because that is the same amount of compute just divided across two different SKS the costs are actually identical too right if you buy one 6 f64 or two F32 there’s no additional discount for buying more capacity at that higher amount it’s literally a linear the more cores you
52:06 literally a linear the more cores you buy the more pieces you get so that that is very nice as well he does make a really interesting point that I do want to point out is there is a quote unquote feature unlock when you hit an f64 there are a couple features that are only f64 enabled and larger particularly around like one of the features is like a free user of power RBI licensing like the free license of a parbi user can’t show up to par. com unless you’re on an f64 to use that experience so there is there is some limitations there as well
52:37 there is some limitations there as well so by using smaller FCS yes you can do them but there are some feature limitations so you kind have to be mindful of that from a governing standpoint but in general I like this idea of being able to quarantine different departments and let them only use certain things another Point around this set to is if I’m using fabric I don’t have the ability of turning off separate workloads inside a fabric capacity and this is something that really bugs me right now I can’t turn off data activator in a fabric capacity
53:10 off data activator in a fabric capacity there’s no there’s no option to say in this capacity I only wanted to use notebooks and lakehouses or notebooks lak houses and SQL analytics endpoints like to me that’s there’s potential like people will have access to fabric and I get it Microsoft wants you to here’s all the tools build whatever you want don’t limit Mike don’t limit the people yeah but I if we’re talk man anymore I know I get it get it but and I guess my Approach here is I’m not saying let’s limit everything
53:40 not saying let’s limit everything forever I think let’s just start with a a limited set of features I think honestly people are overwhelmed a lot of people I talk to want to use fabric it’s of course of course they are but then they don’t know what to start with like I I know and that’s where I feel like having something where saying look I’m going to start you in Fabric and we’re going to start you off with let’s get you beginning with lake houses and notebooks let’s start there and data flow Gen 2 let’s like these are the things we’re going to start with let’s begin with that and then as they become comfortable with that I think more and more people
54:10 with that I think more and more people are going to continue to adopt fabric at a large much larger scale and do more things in it yeah because the use cases will come but I don’t want it to day one just have like open everything I I and now with all these extra all these extra features that are out there there’s a ton of there’s a ton of features inside your tenant there’s new preview features showing up I don’t want those on yet I want to slowly roll them out yeah I think the important Point here is that before you you anyone gets the idea that they
54:42 you you anyone gets the idea that they they can just walk around and and go you get an fcq and you get an fq like you’re you’re you’re at the f64 level for all the capabilities so it’s like you get 60, 000 a year you get 60, 000 here it’s like it ain’t cheap when you go that route so like hey bigger organizations that’s fine but that’s that’s also value yeah exactly if every department is getting enough value that 60 Grand a year and like you could be coming from an older system that has way
55:13 coming from an older system that has way more costs I’ve seen some people move from systems that are extremely more expensive I do think this is yeah a great way though for even four organizations that have had the wild west sprawl and we know of them right where the proliferation of P or f6s are all over the place that this is definitely a way the organization could get their heads around like what all like because you’d have to go through this consolidation of like we have all these workspaces where do they belong yeah and a fantastic way of doing
55:45 yeah and a fantastic way of doing that would potentially be through what do they call it now Azure entra ID the old Azure ad where you look at the users who are the owners of those workspaces and now you can do two things one is you can Define what area potentially is the domain of that workspace but then on the opposite side of that make that user part of a default domain going forward right where all their stuff gets continually created so as you’re cleaning up that ecosystem you’re
56:15 cleaning up that ecosystem you’re understanding where the cost structures are you’re then starting to manage it at a much better level than organizations have had before I totally would agree with that one again I think this is just again balancing what we need to manage versus what we don’t need to manage all right with that I think we’ve had enough conversation around domains good good thoughts really like the chat here thinking about these domains as well so really appreciate chat jumping in there all the comments have been very useful really appreciate you jumping in and chatting with us we really love that
56:45 and chatting with us we really love that Tommy where else can we find the podcast you can find the podcast in apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast make sure to leave a rating it helps a ton Do you have a question idea or topic that you want us to talk about in a future episode head over to power. podcast leave your name and a great question finally join us live every Tuesday and Thursday a. m. Central and join the conversation on all of powerbi tips social media channels we hope you enjoyed our conversation on
57:16 hope you enjoyed our conversation on domains I think this is still something that is underused inside the powerbi or fabric ecosystem check it out it might be useful for your organization especially if you’re a larger organization that has many users in there so I think it might be a good way of helping you manage costs and or delegating permissions to domain experts with that thank you all very much we really appreciate your time good conversation we’ll see you next time
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