Microsoft Fabric Cost & Performance Audit

Your Fabric environment
costs more than it should.
Here is why.

A forensic review that identifies what is driving cost, what is degrading performance, and what to fix first. Every finding comes with a prioritised action plan.

Check My Environment View illustrative audit report
£3,000
fixed fee
2 to 3
weeks delivery
Read-only
assessment
Personally
delivered
10+ years Data platform delivery
Microsoft Fabric · Power BI · Azure Synapse · Data Factory
Financial services · Public sector · Professional services · Retail
Every audit personally conducted Not delegated. Not outsourced.

The problem

Fabric cost problems are rarely just pricing problems.

Rising cost usually comes from deeper architectural and operational issues that standard monitoring does not surface clearly. The real causes are typically:

Is this audit for you?

This audit is right for you if...

Capacity spend is rising but no one can clearly explain what is driving it
Pipelines are slower than expected with no identified root cause
No clear visibility into what is consuming CU capacity or when
Reports throttle or slow down at peak usage times
Semantic model refreshes are failing or running inconsistently
Teams are unsure whether to scale capacity or optimise workloads first

Why this audit is different

This is not a workload review. It is a systems diagnosis.

Most reviews examine individual workloads in isolation. This audit examines the relationships between capacity configuration, pipeline engineering, semantic model design, storage architecture, and workload scheduling as a connected system.

Findings are prioritised by business impact, implementation effort, risk reduction, and cost savings. The outcome is a practical remediation roadmap, not a list of technical observations.

Typical outcomes

What organisations typically achieve.

Avoid unnecessary capacity upgrades
Identify hidden CU consumption
Improve pipeline performance while reducing CU consumption
Reduce report throttling and improve user experience
Prioritise optimisation roadmap
Increase confidence in platform performance

What the audit examines

Six areas examined across your Fabric environment.

Capacity and licensing

Whether your current SKU and licensing structure is costing more than your workloads actually require

Workload patterns

What is consuming capacity, when, and whether scheduling conflicts are degrading performance across the platform

Pipeline architecture

Where design inefficiencies are simultaneously slowing delivery and driving unnecessary CU consumption

Storage efficiency

Whether your data layer is structured to support both query performance and cost efficient storage

Semantic layer and reporting load

How semantic model design and refresh patterns are affecting both report speed and overall capacity health

Workspace configuration

Platform settings and structural decisions quietly working against both cost efficiency and performance reliability

The specific diagnostic framework and methodology applied within each area are proprietary to this engagement and delivered exclusively as part of the audit report.

What the final report looks like

A structured deliverable. Not a list of observations.

Every audit produces the same structured set of outputs. Here is a preview of what each section contains.

Audit summary

A detailed opening covering total findings, risk breakdown, estimated saving range, and the highest priority actions. Written for decision makers, not technical teams.

Risk heatmap

Findings plotted by severity across all six assessment areas, showing where risk is concentrated.

Cost opportunity matrix

Each finding mapped to estimated saving and effort, so you know where to act first.

High saving · Low effort
Medium saving · Medium effort
Remediation roadmap

A prioritised action plan ranked by impact, effort, and risk, with clear ownership and sequencing guidance.

Maturity scorecard

Your environment rated across five domains, each with a score, risk level, and next steps.

Capacity management, Developing
Operational observations

Platform level patterns sitting above individual findings, governance gaps, undocumented ownership, and structural risks that affect the environment as a whole.

View illustrative audit report

How it works

Simple, structured, and fully remote.

1

Complete the short intake form

Confirms your environment is within scope. Takes under two minutes. No commitment at this stage.

2

Scope confirmed and proposal issued

I review your intake details and send a scoped proposal to your email within 24 hours.

3

Read only access provided

No admin rights required. No changes are made to your environment at any point during the audit.

4

Audit completed

I conduct the full diagnostic across all five domains and compile findings into the structured report.

5

Report and readout delivered

Final report delivered within the agreed timeframe, followed by a live readout session with your team.

What you receive

A complete picture. A clear path forward.

Maturity scorecard

Five operational domains, scored and ranked.

The audit examines six technical assessment areas. Those findings are then consolidated into a five domain operational maturity model that measures the overall health of your Fabric platform.

Each domain receives a specific rating, improvement recommendations, and prioritised next steps.

Capacity Management
Workload Optimisation
Storage and Data Architecture
Semantic Layer Efficiency
Operational Governance
You leave with a clear picture of where your platform stands across every dimension and a prioritised roadmap showing exactly what to address first.

Engagement scope

What is covered. What is not.

1 Fabric tenant
Up to 3 Fabric capacities
Up to 10 workspaces
Up to 20 pipelines and dataflows combined
Up to 5 semantic models
One stakeholder readout session
Environments exceeding these parameters are scoped individually. The intake form confirms fit before any commitment is made.

What is not included

Timeline

From intake form to final readout.

Proposal

Within 24 hrs

Audit delivery

2 to 3 weeks

Readout session

On delivery

Post delivery support

14 days

Fixed fee audit

One price. No surprises.

Engagement fee

£3,000

50% on engagement start
50% on report delivery
Larger environments scoped individually

Many clients choose to act on the findings with a follow on optimisation engagement. That conversation happens at the readout session, not before.

About

Emmanuel Obikili

Emmanuel Obikili

Microsoft Fabric Architect and Data Platform Consultant

Over 10 years delivering enterprise data platform and analytics solutions across Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Azure Synapse, SQL Server, and Azure Data Factory. Sectors served include financial services, professional services, public sector, and retail.

I specialise in helping organisations diagnose platform cost, performance, governance, and reliability issues before they become expensive operational problems.

Every audit is conducted personally by me. Not delegated.

Connect on LinkedIn

Common questions

Before you reach out.

Who is this audit not suitable for?

This audit is not the right fit if you are still evaluating whether to adopt Fabric, have no production workloads running yet, or have no active Fabric capacity. The audit is designed for environments already in production and already incurring costs. If you are at an earlier stage, the findings would have limited practical value.

Do you need admin access, and will this affect our production systems?

No to both. The audit is conducted with read only access. No changes are made to your environment at any point, and there is no risk of disruption to production workloads.

What do you need from us to get started?

Complete the short intake form. Once scope is confirmed, I will request read only access to the relevant Fabric capacities and workspaces. No complex onboarding required.

Is implementation of the findings included?

No. The audit delivers findings, recommendations, and a prioritised roadmap. Implementation is a separate engagement and is discussed at the readout session if you choose to proceed.

Can this be done fully remotely?

Yes. The audit is conducted entirely remotely. The readout session is delivered via Teams or your preferred video platform.

We are relatively new to Fabric. Is this still suitable?

Yes. If you are already incurring capacity costs or seeing performance issues, the audit is relevant regardless of how long you have been on Fabric.

What happens after the audit?

You receive the report, attend the readout session, and have 14 days of post delivery support for questions on the findings. Many clients then proceed with a follow on optimisation engagement.

Get in touch

Ready to find out what is really driving your Fabric costs?

Complete the short form and I will confirm scope and send a proposal within 24 hours. No commitment required at this stage.

Check My Environment