Published: 7 July 2026
Microsoft Fabric Delivers Unified Data Foundation in 4 Week Build
Forestry Corporation of NSW partnered with LAB3 to leverage data as the foundation for Enterprise Transformation and the future integration of AI tools.
Forestry Corporation of NSW is the state-owned entity managing two million hectares of State forests for tourism, conservation and renewable timber. As a complex business with more than 100 years of history and responsibility for multiple objectives ranging from firefighting to commercial contracts, Forestry Corporation was motivated to consolidate data collection and reporting across a range of applications.
Forestry Corporation partnered with LAB3 to develop a concept for a modern unified data foundation in cloud that could streamline data collection across business units, reduce fragmentation and duplication, and modernise its reporting in the cloud on a unified platform rather than through point solutions. There was also a keen interest to leverage AI centric tools on the platform data to support analysis and business decision making.
Having already identified that a unified data platform in cloud was the best path forward, we wanted to understand how Fabric would fit into our digital strategy. Microsoft introduced us to LAB3, and from there LAB3validated the approach, stood up the foundational platform, and defined a clear path to modernise our enterprise reporting in the cloud. With that in place, we're exploring how the cloud data can support new AI and agent-based use cases.
John Bayeh — Application Delivery Manager, Forestry Corporation of NSW
Challenge
Looking to leverage data as the foundation for enterprise transformation, Forestry Corporation was seeking to modernise its data systems in a cost-effective way and remove silos that had developed over time. Complexities included Power BI licensing costs and transactional systems hosted on AWS, which ruled out a simple lift-and-shift approach.
Approach
LAB3 was engaged to deliver the data program end-to-end, across design thinking led envisioning, assessment, design, and build phases.
The engagement began with a structured data envisioning workshop to discern requirements and align initiatives to Forestry Corporation’s strategic objectives. LAB3 then conducted a comprehensive data assessment across priority source systems, validating reporting requirements and mapping up three data sources for ingestion to Fabric.
Based on this assessment, LAB3 designed a Microsoft Fabric platform incorporating Lakehouse zones, a medallion architecture, role-based access control, CI/CD pipelines, secure networking, and our Metadata Framework for traceability and managing pipelines at-scale.
The platform was deployed using Infrastructure-as-Code through our unique Fabric Accelerator, with Fabric capacity provisioned, Microsoft Purview Hub enabled, and security and audit logging configured from go-live.
Transactional systems remained on AWS, with secure ingestion patterns established into OneLake. The Metadata Framework was deployed to automate ingestion, transformation, monitoring and governance across sources including Coupa, Pronto, Operation Power BI Data on SQL.
Impact
With its Microsoft Fabric platform concept, Forestry Corporation has a pathway for consolidating its data estate and modernise reporting. The outcomes achieved include:
- A unified data foundation in Microsoft Fabric and OneLake without relocating the transactional database
- Modernisation of the data estate to be cloud first for AI and data agents to seamlessly integrate with the data and be accessible by CoPilot 365
- Applied effective governance through platform-level controls
- Reusable Metadata Framework patterns that reduce engineering effort for future data onboarding
- Potential to establish strong governance, data lineage and security controls through Microsoft Purview, role-based access control and audit logging
- Three data sources ingested to a validated cloud enterprise data platform ready for Power BI modelling
- Platform capable of absorbing new systems without rework
- Forestry Corporation’s team upskilled with knowledge transfers to enable their platform capabilities.
Going forward, Forestry Corporation has the opportunity to integrate its data into a modern, governed foundation that allows for enterprise analytics and future integration of AI tools.
LAB3 was able to accelerate our rate of Fabric deployment, enabling us to achieve progress at a much faster timeframe than expected. The design thinking approach and ongoing collaboration throughout the engagement upskilled our internal digital capability.
John Bayeh — Application Delivery Manager, Forestry Corporation of NSW