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Configure OneLake Shortcuts and Data Sharing

Configure OneLake Shortcuts and Data Sharing

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Summary

This module covers OneLake Shortcuts (virtualized pointers to external and internal data storage without moving data) and cross-workspace data sharing mechanisms in Microsoft Fabric.

Architecture & Shortcut Types

               ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
               │         Microsoft OneLake           │
               │   (Single Virtual Namespace)        │
               └──────────────────┬──────────────────┘
                                  │
      ┌───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┐
      │                           │                           │
      ▼                           ▼                           ▼
┌───────────────┐           ┌───────────────┐           ┌───────────────┐
│ Internal LH/WH│           │ ADLS Gen2 / S3│           │ Google / Data-│
│ (Zero-Copy    │           │ (External     │           │ verse (Multi- │
│ Shortcut)     │           │ Shortcut)     │           │ Cloud Point)  │
└───────────────┘           └───────────────┘           └───────────────┘

1. Shortcut Sources

  • Internal OneLake Shortcuts: Point to tables or files in other Fabric Lakehouses or Warehouses across different workspaces, enabling domain-driven Data Mesh architectures without duplication.
  • External ADLS Gen2 Shortcuts: Direct connection using organizational account, service principal, or user-delegated SAS tokens.
  • Amazon S3 Shortcuts: Connects directly to AWS S3 buckets using AWS IAM access keys or IAM roles.
  • Google Cloud Storage (GCS) Shortcuts: Direct connection to GCS buckets using HMAC keys.
  • Microsoft Dataverse Shortcuts: Connects natively to Dynamics 365 and Power Apps business data in Dataverse.

2. External Data Sharing

  • Allows sharing OneLake data directly with external Azure tenants (inter-organizational B2B data sharing) without creating ETL pipelines or duplicating files.

Exam Traps & Gotchas

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  • Zero Data Movement: Shortcuts create symbolic links in the OneLake directory. Compute querying the shortcut reads directly from the target source storage endpoint.
  • Egress Costs for Multi-Cloud: S3 and GCS shortcuts do not duplicate storage inside OneLake, but standard AWS/GCP cross-cloud egress bandwidth fees apply during queries.