Data Warehouse with Private Link enabled + Lookup activity - Cannot connect to SQL Database

[SimonDalecky]

Hello Fabric Community,

We recently enabled Private Link on our Microsoft Fabric environment. While we were aware of certain limitations, we encountered an issue that doesn't seem to be explicitly mentioned in the documentation (or is only indirectly implied).

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Issue

We are unable to use the Lookup activity in Data Pipelines to run queries or execute procedures on a Data Warehouse item within the same workspace.

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Error Message

Cannot connect to SQL Database.

Please contact SQL server team for further support.

Server: 'xyz.datawarehouse.fabric.microsoft.com', Database: 'xyz', User: ''.

Check the connection configuration is correct, and make sure the SQL Database firewall allows the Data Factory runtime to access. While private links are enabled, you cannot connect from this IP address.

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What We Found in the Documentation

In the section on Private Link Experiences, there's a paragraph about Pipelines:

Pipeline: When you connect to a Pipeline via Private Link, you can use the data pipeline to load data from any data source with public endpoints into a private-link-enabled Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse. Customers can also author and operationalize data pipelines with activities, including Notebook and Dataflow activities, using the private link. However, copying data from and into a Data Warehouse isn't currently possible when Fabric's private link is enabled.

While the documentation explicitly states that copying data to/from a Data Warehouse is not possible, it does not mention that the Data Warehouse is entirely inaccessible for activities like Lookup.

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Question

Is this a potential misconfiguration on our side, or is the documentation incomplete and the Data Warehouse is indeed not accessible at all via Lookup activity when Private Link is enabled?

Any clarification or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

[fredguis]

Hi @SimonDalecky , I just sent you a private message. I’d love to connect and understand your scenario better—especially around Private Link and how you're working with Fabric Data Warehouse today.

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi  @SimonDalecky ,

As we haven’t heard back from you, we wanted to kindly follow up to check if the solution provided by @nilendraFabric , @R1k91   for the issue worked. If their response addressed, please mark it as Accept as solution and click Yes if you found it helpful.

Thanks ands regards

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @SimonDalecky ,

I wanted to check if you had the opportunity to review the information provided. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions. If the response has addressed your query, please accept it as a solution and give a 'Kudos' so other members can easily find it.
Thank you.

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @SimonDalecky ,

May I ask if you have resolved this issue? If so, please mark the helpful reply and accept it as the solution. This will be helpful for other community members who have similar problems to solve it faster.

Thank you.

[nilendraFabric · Accepted solution]

@SimonDalecky 

It appears the Data Warehouse endpoint is currently inaccessible for any pipeline activity (including a Lookup activity) when Private Link is enabled. The documentation explicitly mentions that copying data from or into a Data Warehouse isn’t possible, and even though it doesn’t call out Lookup activity by name, the underlying limitation means the Data Warehouse SQL endpoint can’t be reached from the pipeline runtime once Private Link is enabled. In practice, this blocks queries or stored procedures in Lookup, copy activities, or other attempts to connect to the warehouse.
Many users see the same behavior—a connection failure—because the Data Warehouse endpoints don’t support these operations over the private network yet. Disabling Private Link or using other endpoints (such as a Lakehouse) is often the only current workaround. If you must work with the Warehouse, you may need to revert to public access or use an alternative path until the platform’s roadmap includes support for private-link-enabled Data Warehouse pipeline operations.

If this post helps, then please give us Kudos and consider Accept it as a solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[DavidLukas]

Hi, have you reported this to Microsoft? We seem to have a similar problem. 

[SimonDalecky]

Hi,

Yes, we had a call with some people from Microsoft. It was confirmed that the integration between Data Pipelines and Data Warehouse is not currently working under the Private Link setup.

They are aware of the issue, and development is in progress, but no release date has been specified.

[nilendraFabric]

Hello @DavidLukas 

No, I haven't. @SimonDalecky Did you ?

[R1k91]

probably with  " copying data from " they means "read data from".

that seems a major block to me.

it states you are able to write into a lakehouse, you are able to read I suppose.

if yes, you could try to shortcut the warehouse table into a lakehouse and to perform the lookup activity on the shortcut.

just guessing... not tested...