Your resource group
ADLS Gen2 storage, Azure Data Factory and Key Vault, yours to create in and delete from — inside limits that keep it a lab, not a data centre.
Announced
Azure Data Engineering
Announced — not yet on sale. Join the waitlist and we will write when it opens.
A real Azure footprint of your own: a resource group with ADLS Gen2, Data Factory and Key Vault, a Microsoft Fabric workspace, and an Azure SQL database — on Professional, a Synapse dedicated SQL pool and your own event hub too. Self-directed practice on the services Azure data teams run — no lessons, guided labs, grading or mentoring.
- Azure Data Factory
- ADLS Gen2
- Microsoft Fabric
- Azure SQL
- Synapse dedicated SQL pool
- Event Hubs
What you get
Real Azure services in our subscription, created for you and wired together. You sign in with a Microsoft invitation; you never open an Azure account or see a bill.
Azure Data Factory
Pipelines, copy activities, triggers and mapping data flows, with a managed identity of your own — no keys in pipelines.
Microsoft Fabric
Your own workspace: Lakehouse, Warehouse, Data Pipelines, Dataflow Gen2 and Spark notebooks.
Azure SQL Database
A database of your own, as a source to extract from or a serving layer to load into.
Synapse dedicated SQL pool
Professional: an MPP warehouse (DW100c) you start when you need it — distributions, partitioning and bulk loads for real.
Event Hubs and Stream Analytics
Professional: your own event hub, Stream Analytics jobs, and Fabric Eventstream and Eventhouse for the streaming work.
How the pieces are wired
- Data Factory reaches your storage through your own managed identity; the course datasets are mounted read-only from a shared account.
- Fabric runs on a shared capacity that pauses when nobody is working. Opening your lab wakes it in a few seconds. While it is paused, scheduled Fabric pipelines and notebooks do not run — a schedule never wakes it — while Data Factory triggers keep running.
- Idle engines are stopped for you: a Data Factory debug session after 20 idle minutes, the dedicated SQL pool after 20 minutes without a query. You see what was stopped and why on My Labs.
- Everything runs in Central India, on our subscription. When your access ends the lab stays read-only for 14 days, then it is deleted.
What you can practise
Verth Labs supplies the environment. What you run on it is yours — there are no lessons, guided labs, grading or mentoring.
- Land files and database extracts in ADLS Gen2 with Data Factory copy pipelines and scheduled triggers
- Model bronze → silver → gold in a Fabric Lakehouse, and serve it from a Fabric Warehouse
- Run incremental loads with watermark-driven pipelines from Azure SQL
- Transform with Fabric Spark notebooks and Dataflow Gen2, and compare the two
- Load and tune an MPP warehouse on a Synapse dedicated SQL pool (Professional)
- Stream from Event Hubs through Stream Analytics and Fabric Eventstream (Professional)
The two tiers
The same Foundations and Professional tiers as every Verth Labs product. Both are real Azure resources of your own; Professional adds the warehouse and streaming services.
Foundations
Batch data engineering on Azure end to end: land it, move it, transform it, query it.
- Resource group
- Your own: ADLS Gen2, Data Factory, Key Vault
- Data Factory
- Your own factory; debug sessions up to 8 cores
- Microsoft Fabric
- Your own workspace; Spark on one small node
- Azure SQL
- Your own database
- Warehouse and streaming
- Fabric Warehouse; no dedicated SQL pool or event hub
- Hours
- Unlimited; idle engines are stopped for you
What you can practise
- Build and schedule copy pipelines from Azure SQL into the lake
- Model a Lakehouse and query it from the Fabric Warehouse
- Work through the whole batch flow end to end
Professional
Production patterns: streaming, MPP warehousing, performance and CI/CD.
- Resource group
- Your own, as Foundations
- Data Factory
- Your own factory; debug sessions up to 8 cores
- Microsoft Fabric
- Your own workspace; Spark with a driver and an executor
- Azure SQL
- Your own database
- Warehouse and streaming
- Synapse dedicated SQL pool (DW100c, three starts a day); your own event hub and Stream Analytics
- Hours
- Unlimited; idle engines are stopped for you
What you can practise
- Everything in Foundations
- Load and tune a dedicated SQL pool: distributions, partitions, statistics
- Stream events end to end, and deploy it all with GitHub Actions
Waitlist
Be first to know when it opens
Leave your email and we will write once, when Azure Data Engineering goes on sale — with the price.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need my own Azure account?
- No. Everything runs in our subscription. You get a Microsoft invitation at your email address, accept it once, and sign in to the Azure portal and Fabric with it. The cloud bill is ours.
- Is Databricks included?
- No. This product is the Azure-native stack: Data Factory, ADLS Gen2, Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL and Synapse. For Databricks, see our Databricks product.
- Why did my scheduled Fabric pipeline not run overnight?
- Fabric runs on a shared capacity that pauses when nobody is working, and a schedule does not wake it. While it is paused, scheduled Fabric pipelines and notebooks do not run. Data Factory triggers are not affected — schedule unattended work there.
- Something I started was stopped. Why?
- Idle engines are stopped to keep the lab affordable: a Data Factory debug session after 20 idle minutes, the dedicated SQL pool after 20 minutes without a query (and after 2 hours regardless), a data-flow run after an hour. Nothing is deleted; My Labs shows what was stopped and why, and you can start it again.
- What happens when my access ends?
- Everything is stopped and your lab turns read-only for 14 days: you can still sign in and download your work. After 14 days it is deleted. Renew within the 14 days and it is exactly as you left it.
- Is there teaching, labs or a project?
- No. Like every Verth Labs product this is an environment for self-directed practice — no lessons, guided labs, grading or mentoring. Bring a curriculum, or a problem.
Related learning paths
Big Data Engineering
Build the distributed-systems foundation hiring teams expect for data engineer and platform roles.
Databricks Data Engineering
A real Azure Databricks workspace for self-directed practice — multi-node Spark, Unity Catalog and Lakeflow Jobs. Unlimited hours, and the cloud bill is ours.
Be first to know when it opens
Announced — not yet on sale. Join the waitlist and we will write when it opens.