Synapse analytics Managed Identity authentication issue

Question

Last year when my team tried to authenticate to dataverse from synapse workspace using managed identity, we hit an issue because we were not able to attach the synapse workspace managed identity (MSI) to the inner spark pool. With the SFIs requiring managed identity as the recommended Auth method, I wanted to check if support has been added for the spark pool also to be tied to the MSI

Answer 1

Hi @Ashvini Krishna Ayyasamy

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A platform and thanks for posting your query here.

Currently, Azure Synapse Analytics allows using a workspace's Managed Identity for various external integrations, including Azure Data Lake, Azure SQL, and Dataverse. However, support for using the Synapse Workspace MSI with Synapse Spark Pools may vary depending on the service updates.

Here are a few points to consider:

Authentication with Dataverse:

• For direct integration with Dataverse using Managed Identity, ensure that the Synapse workspace’s MSI has been granted the appropriate permissions in Dataverse.
• If the Spark Pool doesn’t yet support binding directly to the Synapse workspace’s MSI, you might need to authenticate using a service principal (as an alternative) for Spark jobs accessing Dataverse.

Checking Support for MSI with Spark Pools:

• You can verify the latest updates regarding Spark Pools and Managed Identity integration in the Azure Synapse Analytics documentation.
• Microsoft frequently updates Synapse features. If the MSI support for Spark Pools has been added, it should be documented in the release notes.

Workaround for Spark Pools:

If direct support is not yet available, you can consider the following:

• Use a service principal for Spark authentication temporarily.
• Use Azure Key Vault to securely manage credentials that Spark Pools can access.

If you want to confirm whether this feature has been implemented or is planned, I recommend reaching out to the Microsoft Product Group through your Azure support plan or feedback channels.

I hope this information helps!

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