Governance Framework

Effective governance in Fabric combines Microsoft Purview for cataloging and lineage, endorsement for trust signals, sensitivity labels for data protection, and organizational policies for access control.

Microsoft Purview Integration

• Data Catalog: Automatically discovers and catalogs all Fabric artifacts (lakehouses, warehouses, reports)
• Data Lineage: Visual, end-to-end lineage from source ingestion through transformation to Power BI reports
• Data Map: Browse and search across your entire data estate
• Glossary: Define business terms and link them to technical assets

Data Domains & Ownership

Organize your Fabric workspaces into logical domains (e.g., Finance, HR, Marketing) to align with business ownership.

• Assign a domain owner responsible for data quality and access within their domain
• Use Fabric domains feature to tag workspaces by business area
• Establish a data stewardship model — stewards per domain for hands-on governance

Endorsement

Fabric provides two endorsement levels to signal trust in artifacts:

Sensitivity Labels

Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) sensitivity labels can be applied to Fabric artifacts to classify and protect data:

• Labels flow downstream automatically — if a lakehouse is labeled "Confidential," reports built on it inherit the label
• Labels can enforce encryption and access restrictions on exported data
• Integrates with Microsoft 365 compliance center and DLP policies

Data Quality

• Implement data quality rules in notebooks (Great Expectations, custom Spark checks)
• Use Delta Lake constraints (NOT NULL, CHECK) for schema-level enforcement
• Set up monitoring and alerting for data freshness, completeness, and accuracy
• Create a data quality dashboard in Power BI for visibility

Security Model Overview

Fabric implements a defense-in-depth approach with multiple security layers: identity, workspace, item, data, and network.

Workspace Roles

Every workspace has four built-in roles that control what users can do:

Data-Level Security

Row-Level Security (RLS)

RLS restricts data access at the row level based on user identity. Configure RLS in Power BI semantic models or Warehouse T-SQL:

-- Create a security predicate function
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fn_security_predicate(@Region AS nvarchar(50))
RETURNS TABLE
WITH SCHEMABINDING
AS
RETURN SELECT 1 AS result
WHERE @Region = USER_NAME()
   OR USER_NAME() = 'admin@contoso.com';

-- Apply security policy to a table
CREATE SECURITY POLICY RegionFilter
ADD FILTER PREDICATE dbo.fn_security_predicate(Region)
ON dbo.SalesData
WITH (STATE = ON);

Column-Level Security (CLS)

CLS restricts access to specific columns. Use GRANT and DENY statements on individual columns in Fabric Warehouse:

-- Deny access to salary column for a specific role
DENY SELECT ON dbo.Employees(Salary) TO [LimitedAccess];

-- Grant access to only specific columns
GRANT SELECT ON dbo.Employees(EmployeeId, Name, Department) TO [LimitedAccess];

OneLake Data Access Roles

OneLake data access roles provide fine-grained access control at the folder level within a lakehouse. You can restrict users to specific folders or tables without granting access to the entire lakehouse.

Network Security

• Private Endpoints: Connect to Fabric from your private network over Azure Private Link
• Managed Virtual Networks: Fabric Spark can run within a managed VNet, ensuring outbound traffic is controlled
• Trusted workspace access: Allow specific workspaces to access firewalled storage accounts
• Conditional Access: Use Entra ID conditional access policies to control how and from where users access Fabric

🏛️ Domain Strategy & Ownership

Organize your Fabric estate around business domains — not technical teams or projects. Each domain should have clear ownership and delegated governance authority.

📐 Workspace Topology

Workspaces are both a security boundary and an operational boundary in Fabric. Design them intentionally before creating any content.

🔐 Security Layering

Fabric implements defense-in-depth with five security layers. A governance-first environment configures all layers before exposing data to users.

🚀 Development Lifecycle

A governed development lifecycle ensures changes are tracked, reviewed, tested, and promoted safely — not edited directly in production.