Forget the Enterprise: a pragmatic Fabric architecture for SMEs

Think Fabric is only for big enterprises with F64s and Data Mesh diagrams? Think again. This session shows how SMEs can build lean, scalable Fabric platforms with real-world patterns, small teams, and tight budgets. No Data Stewards required.

If you’ve seen Fabric demos lately, you’d think it only works for massive enterprises. You know the type: global organisations with 50-person data teams, Data Mesh diagrams that look like London Underground maps, and enough F64 capacities to burn through a few mortgages’ worth of cloud spend each year.

But here’s the good news: Fabric is not just for them.

In this session, we ditch the enterprise fantasy and show you how to design a lean, pragmatic Fabric architecture tailored to small and medium-sized organisations. Companies that want value fast, who don’t have a Centre of Excellence, and definitely aren’t hiring a Data Steward anytime soon.

We’ll walk through:
1) A minimal-but-scalable Fabric setup that works for teams of 1 to 5
2) Smart defaults and architecture patterns that prioritise delivery over dogma
3) Keeping costs low; yes, Fabric can run fine on just F2 or F4
4) Real-world examples from actual client projects (the good, the bad, and the duct-taped)

This session is opinionated, practical, and built for the 80% of us who live outside enterprise walls. If you’re working with SMB clients (or are one) this talk will give you the tools and confidence to get started with Fabric your way.

Takeaways:
- A ready-to-apply blueprint for a small-scale Fabric data platform
- Lessons from real-world SME implementations
- What to ignore from those flashy demos, and what actually matters

Forget the enterprise. It’s time to build something pragmatic.

Speaker

Bas Land's Sessions

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Forget the Enterprise: a pragmatic Fabric architecture for SMEs