559: What is Liquid Clustering?

Mike & Tommy dive into Liquid Clustering in Microsoft Fabric, breaking down why Runtime 2.0 changes it from an experimental feature into the default table layout strategy for Lakehouse workloads. They explore how incremental clustering solves the write amplification problems that plagued Runtime 1.3, why file skipping matters for Direct Lake and Power BI report performance, and how teams should think about choosing clustering columns, running OPTIMIZE, and trusting Auto Reclustering without blowing their F-SKU capacity. Resources: https://milescole.dev/data-engineering/2026/07/24/Incremental-Liquid-Clustering-Fabric-Runtime-2.html, https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Updates-Blog/Fabric-Runtime-2-0-Generally-Available/ba-p/5326359, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/data-engineering/runtime-2-0, https://workingondata.wordpress.com/2026/08/14/fabric-runtime-2-0-is-general-available/ News: https://www.meetup.com/chicagolandpowerbi/events/315787998/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Fabric-Updates-Blog/Fabric-August-2026-Feature-Summary/ba-p/5325824 Get in touch: Send in your questions or topics you want us to discuss by tweeting to @PowerBITips with the hashtag #empMailbag or submit on the PowerBI.tips Podcast Page. Visit PowerBI.tips: https://powerbi.tips/ Watch the episodes live every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 730am CST on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/powerbitips Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/230fp78XmHHRXTiYICRLVv Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/explicit-measures-podcast/id1568944083‎ Check Out Community Jam: https://jam.powerbi.tips Follow Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcarlo/ Follow Tommy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommypuglia/