Create a Fabric Capacity Pause/Resume package

A Fabric Capacity Pause/Resume package suspends or resumes a Microsoft Fabric capacity. Pausing stops you paying for a capacity that nothing is using.

Prerequisites

• An Azure App Registration data provider in the workspace. This is the App Registration whose service principal the package acts as, and it decides which Azure resources you can choose.
• The principal able to enumerate resource groups in the subscription. This package finds its resource that way, so without this the resource list is empty and the package cannot be completed.
• The principal needs permission to change the resource, not only to read it. Listing a resource and acting on it are different rights.

How it works

You choose a data provider, then the capacity to act on, then what to do to it.

When the resource list is empty, the editor names the scope it searched, for example No … were found in … this data provider can see. An empty list reflects the service principal's permissions.

Each of these packages performs one action. Scaling up before a load and back down afterwards is two packages, ordered in a process map or on a schedule. Ordering them this way is also what makes the saving visible in the execution log.

The operation

Pause stops the capacity's billing. Resume brings it back online.

Pause is the action that saves money, and its effect is absolute: while a capacity is paused, nothing that depends on it works. Reports do not render, notebooks do not run, and refreshes fail.

Ordering therefore matters more than with the other Azure resource package types. Resume before the first step that needs the capacity, and pause only after the last one. A paused capacity in the middle of a flow does not slow the flow down, it fails it.

If you need the capacity available but cheaper, use Fabric Capacity Scaling instead.

Create the package

1. Go to Orchestration > Packages.
2. Select Create, then select Fabric Capacity Pause/Resume from the Azure area.
3. Select a Data provider.
4. Select the Resource. If the list is empty, see Troubleshooting below.
5. Select the Operation, either Suspend or Resume.
6. Select Save. The package is stored as a Draft.

A worked pattern

Resume at 21:45, run the loads and refreshes, then pause as the final step.

Best practices

• Pair the packages. A scale-up with no matching scale-down is how a cost optimisation exercise becomes a cost increase. Put both in the same process map.
• Order them around the work, not on a clock. A scale-down scheduled for 06:00 runs whether or not the load finished. A scale-down that depends on the load step does not.
• Make the down action the one that cannot be skipped. If the flow can fail between the up and down steps, arrange for the down step to run anyway.
• Give the principal least privilege, scoped to the specific resource rather than the subscription.
• Check the cost model before assuming a saving. Not every action stops billing, and the field help states which ones do.

Troubleshooting

The resource list is empty. The service principal cannot enumerate resource groups, or cannot see resources of this type. Grant subscription level Reader or Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/read, then select the refresh button. The editor's own message names the scope it searched.

The resource lists but the action fails at run time. The principal has read permission without write permission. It needs a role that can change the resource, not only see it.

The package succeeds but nothing changed. The resource was already in the target state. These actions are idempotent, which means a success does not by itself prove that anything moved.

A resource was renamed or deleted in Azure. The package stores the reference it was configured with. Reopen the package, select the resource again from the refreshed list, and save.

Reference

Validation messages: Please select a data provider, Please select a capacity, Please select an operation.

Related articles

• Packages overview
• Create an Azure Virtual Machine Start/Stop package
• Create an Azure SQL Database Scaling package
• Create a Fabric Capacity Scaling package