Boosting Performance with Synapse to Fabric Migration
Cloudaeon migrated an enterprise from Synapse SQL Pool to Microsoft Fabric, reducing costs by 40% and boosting query performance by 30%.
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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.
Organisations using Azure Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools face growing challenges with performance bottlenecks and high costs. Synapse had certainly served as a reliable enterprise-grade data warehouse however its rigid scaling model and dependency on manual performance create significant operational overhead.
In this case study we explain how Cloudaeon helped an enterprise overcome these challenges successfully by migrating from Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool to Microsoft Fabric Warehouse.
The objective was to modernise their data platform to adopt a flexible lakehouse architecture that could deliver cost efficiency and improved analytics performance with agility.
Challenges
Performance and scalability issues: Synapse SQL Pools had a rigid architecture that struggled with high concurrency. That resulted in slow reporting and lack of elasticity meant workloads suffered during peak demand periods.
High and inflexible costs: Synapse required a fixed monthly commitment for computing resources. This led to unnecessary cost for unused capacity during off-peak hours too.
Operational overhead: Database administrators were heavily involved in manual performance tuning, query optimisation and maintenance. Resources were mostly occupied with manual tasks than strategic initiatives.
Limited data accessibility: Data in the warehouse could not be easily combined with raw data in the data lake. This generated insights on siloed data and limited advanced analytics.
Solutions
Cloudaeon implemented a future-ready solution that scaled dynamically with existing Azure services and reduce dependency on constant manual intervention.
The migration was completed by focusing on strategy in a systematic and phased approach.
Automated schema and code conversion: To accelerate the transition, Terraform and Fabric pipelines were used to automate schema conversion. Synapse-specific T-SQL scripts were translated into Fabric-compatible formats which reduced manual errors.
This automation shortened the migration timeline and standardised processes across environments.
Efficient data ingestion: Over 60 TB of historical data was ingested using Fabric Data Factory pipelines. For large datasets already residing in Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) shortcuts were created instead of duplicating the data. This hybrid approach enabled Fabric Lakehouse to access existing raw data directly.
Performance validation: A comprehensive validation phase was carried out with parallel query runs. More than 50 business critical queries were benchmarked across both environments. This helped Fabric’s performance and reassured stakeholders that migration risks were mitigated.
Impact
Cost reduction: A 40% drop in storage and compute costs.
Fabric’s pay-as-you-go consumption model allowed elastic scaling that ensured resources were paid for only when used.
Enhanced performance: 30% Improvement in query execution time. Fabric’s ability to auto-scale during peak demand meant bottlenecks were eliminated thereby creating a smoother experience for users.
Increased business agility: Reporting in Power BI became faster and more flexible with a unified platform combining both warehouse and lake data. Insights could be generated without waiting for IT teams to prepare data.
Operational efficiency: The reliance on constant DBA intervention reduced significantly. Fabric’s automated management features enabled IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than routine maintenance.
Conclusion
By migrating from Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool to Microsoft Fabric, the organisation built a future-ready data platform. The move not only delivered substantial cost savings and performance improvements but also empowered business users with greater agility and accessibility.
The new lakehouse-based architecture provided a single platform for structured warehouse data and raw lake data. It reduced silos and enabled advanced analytics.
With infrastructure constraints eliminated, the organisation is well-positioned to support rapid growth and respond quickly to evolving business needs.
Ready to modernise your data warehouse? Contact us today to explore your migration to Microsoft Fabric.
