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dimkalamaras
Microsoft Employee
5 hours ago

A reference architecture for private API access from Microsoft Fabric

Fabric notebooks often need to read from authenticated REST APIs that live inside a network boundary — historians, MES, custom microservices, on-prem inventory systems. Public IPs are off the table, Fabric can't host a VPN client, and copying the data into the lakehouse first defeats the point.

This repo is a reference architecture for the path that actually works in production: Fabric → Managed Private Endpoint → Azure Function App (acting as a thin reverse proxy) → N private backends — with no changes to the backend code.

 

high-level-architecture.png

 

The shape

The Function App is a ~100-line Python proxy on Flex Consumption, VNet-integrated:

  • One catch-all route /<backend>/<anything> — the first URL segment selects the backend, everything after is forwarded unchanged.
  • Server-side credentials. The proxy adds Basic auth outbound; Fabric never sees or sends backend secrets.
  • Response URL rewriting so HATEOAS-style links stay self-consistent and callable.
  • Adding a backend = one app setting + one line of code.

Why it fits Fabric

  • MPE is Fabric's native way to reach a private Azure resource; once approved, Fabric resolves the Function App's hostname to a private IP on Microsoft's backbone.
  • Flex Consumption gives you VNet integration without an App Service Environment and scales per second.
  • No backend changes — the backends keep speaking plain HTTP/Basic-auth on the VNet; they don't know the caller is Fabric.

What's in the repo

End-to-end walkthrough: VNet + subnets, two FastAPI VMs standing in for on-prem servers, the proxy itself, Flex Consumption deployment with VNet integration, storage hardening (the Microsoft.Storage service endpoint gotcha that costs everyone half a day), MPE creation and approval, the Fabric notebook, and a CI/CD path via Azure Repos + Deployment Center.

 

Repo: DimKal-Org/fabric-mpe-function-proxy - key files: README.md, src/function_app.py, notebooks/fabric_call_function.ipynb.

 

 

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