Data Factory Pipeline Default Identity Issue

Hi All,

We are currently experiencing a recurring issue within our Microsoft Fabric environment related to pipeline executions.

Our pipelines were originally developed and configured by a data engineer who has since left the organization. After their departure, their Entra ID account was disabled as part of our offboarding process. However, we noticed that all associated pipelines began to fail immediately after the user account was disabled. Upon re-enabling the account, the pipelines started running successfully again.

From our investigation, it appears that the pipelines or their dependencies are tied to the engineer’s identity possibly via an internal configuration such as a PipelineDefaultIdentity, although this attribute does not appear in the pipeline JSON or UI within Fabric.

Seeking clarity & assistance on the following:

1. Could you confirm if Microsoft Fabric pipelines have a hidden or system-bound PipelineDefaultIdentity or similar property that ties execution context to a specific Entra ID user?
2. If so, what is the supported process to rebind this identity to a Service Principal or Service Account, so that pipeline execution is not dependent on a human user account?
3. Is there a documented way to identify all Linked Services or connections within Fabric that are using user-based authentication (e.g., OAuth via user identity)?
4. What is the recommended approach to migrate pipelines and connections to a non-user identity (such as Managed Identity or Service Principal) in Microsoft Fabric, ensuring minimal downtime?

   Any guidance or tooling you can provide to support this transition would be greatly appreciated, especially in understanding how Fabric handles identity bindings under the hood and how we can properly decouple pipeline execution from individual user accounts.