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Anonymous
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PBI Premium vs Synapse: which solution fits best

Hello,  I would like to know how to tell which solution, either PBI Premium or Synapse, is the best for a specific scenario. 
I have a dashboard that collects mobile application usage data. 
We estimate that we expect 100k events every month. 

The data model is a simple one, with one big transactional table and corresponding dimensions. The granularity of this fact table is at the event level, so it will contain the 100k events every month.

We expect to have between 10 - 20 final users of the dashboard, that will at some point consult it and query it.

The client expects at least to query 2 years of historic data with this dashboard. 

My initial suggestion was to use a Dataflow in PBI Premium and associate a Data Lake Gen2 to it to store all the data. 

Then I thought to DirectQuery the Data Lake, but I would like to know what are the capacity limits of the Data Lake to handle all these DirectQueries if it's too much if it will be too slow. Are there any reference performance estimations?

There is also the option to import all those 2 year's events into a PBI Dataset. Premium allows storing 400GB of data.  Would these 2 years of data fit in 400GB? Is this approach better than DirectQuery the Data Lake?

With the sample data, I have 15k events that take 600kb. I think there is no linear relationship because of the compression of the dataset, but if it was I would expect 30GB a year:

PowerBoy_0-1616586163468.png
Do these numbers make any sense?


I'm also worried about the computing capacity of PBI Premium. Is it designed to stand the estimated workload (100k daily events, 20 dashboard users). I've been told that Synapse has a better engine for that. 

How could I theoretically compare these two services?

Any suggestion or recommendation you might have is more than welcome.

Thanks 








1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
v-eqin-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous ,

 

DirectQuery: No data is imported or copied into Power BI Desktop. Instead, as you create or interact with a visualization, Power BI Desktop queries the underlying data source (i.e. SQL DW), which means you’re always viewing the latest data in SQL DW (i.e. real-time). DirectQuery lets you build visualizations over very large datasets, where it otherwise would be unfeasible to first import and aggregate all of the data (although now with support for 400GB datasets and with Aggregation tables the need to use DirectQuery because the dataset won’t fit into memory goes away in many cases and DirectQuery is needed only if real-time results are required). See Data sources supported by DirectQuery.

 

In addition,there is a Power BI Professional’s Guide to Azure Synapse Analytics describing the Synapse Analytics platform and its benefits and use cases for Power BI professionals.

 

Refer to:

https://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2019/12/azure-synapse-analytics-power-bi/

https://workingondata.wordpress.com/2020/11/08/direct-query-your-data-lake-files-using-azure-synapse-analytics-and-power-bi/

 Synapse with Power BI 

 

Best Regards,
Eyelyn Qin
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

View solution in original post

2 REPLIES 2
v-eqin-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous ,

 

Could you tell me if your problem has been solved? If it is, kindly Accept it as the solution. More people will benefit from it.

 

Best Regards,
Eyelyn Qin

v-eqin-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous ,

 

DirectQuery: No data is imported or copied into Power BI Desktop. Instead, as you create or interact with a visualization, Power BI Desktop queries the underlying data source (i.e. SQL DW), which means you’re always viewing the latest data in SQL DW (i.e. real-time). DirectQuery lets you build visualizations over very large datasets, where it otherwise would be unfeasible to first import and aggregate all of the data (although now with support for 400GB datasets and with Aggregation tables the need to use DirectQuery because the dataset won’t fit into memory goes away in many cases and DirectQuery is needed only if real-time results are required). See Data sources supported by DirectQuery.

 

In addition,there is a Power BI Professional’s Guide to Azure Synapse Analytics describing the Synapse Analytics platform and its benefits and use cases for Power BI professionals.

 

Refer to:

https://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2019/12/azure-synapse-analytics-power-bi/

https://workingondata.wordpress.com/2020/11/08/direct-query-your-data-lake-files-using-azure-synapse-analytics-and-power-bi/

 Synapse with Power BI 

 

Best Regards,
Eyelyn Qin
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

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