Power BI Capacity - Capacity is at 100 percent.

[JosKuiper]

Hi everyone,

Every now and then we get a warning that our capacity is at 100 percent. We understand that the resources for our capacity are running out but we have a few questions about the warning we did'nt get answered in the documentation or a search on the internet.

1. What is the exact impact of this warning? What do our users see when this happens? We get the warning 30 minutes after it occured and it seems that a user fires a query that causes the capacity to go to 100 percent. 

2. Based on question 1, how should we address this warning? Is it a red flag or just a few seconds of delay for one or more users?

Thanks in advance!

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

1. When you go over capacity you accrue overage debt. That debt needs to be repaid via burndowns. If your debt keeps increasing your users will see the following

First, delays in interactive queries (visuals taking longer to load)

Then, rejection of interactive queries (users will see "Capacity exceeded" messages

Lastly, background operations will be rejected. No more refreshes.

2. There are several things you need to do, some immediately, others long term.  The answer also depends on your setup (number of capacities, available resources)

immediately: move affected business critical workspaces to other capacities

long term: rake the developers who caused the excessive CU over the coals work with the culprits to reduce their CU usage - query optimization, fewer refreshes, incremental refresh etc. Educate developers on their impact on the capacity health, and your overall business operations.

Also, complain to Microsoft about the order of throttling. It boggles the mind why they chose to punish interactive first.