Power BI over bigger on-premise database

[papanovn]

Hello.

I have a meeting with a very big customer who already use QlikView and Tableau. Anyway they want to know more about Power BI and see what can Microsoft put on the table. My biggest concern about possible Power BI project there is the amount of data. 1GB pbi file size limit will be exceeded for sure. Transfering databases to Azure is not a matter of discussion. Probably I can use live queries to SSAS but I'm worried about how fast will be.

So, share your experience please. What is the best way to use Power BI for analysis over big databases?

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is very fast and live queries over SSAS cubes works incredibly well and is fast. It sounds like in your case this will be even better once you can render Power BI reports directly on-premises in SSRS.

[papanovn · Accepted solution]

Thank you.

[micahwilliams12]

Microsoft announced Power BI Premium – a capacity-based licensing model that increases flexibility for how users access, share and distribute content in Power BI. The new offering also introduces the ability to manage Power BI reports on-premises with the included Power BI Report Server. Power BI Report Server delivers the capabilities we made available in January 2017 as the Technical Preview for Power BI Reports in SSRS. Power BI Report Server is an on-premises server that enables Power BI Pro users to publish Power BI reports and distribute them broadly across the enterprise, without requiring report consumers to be licensed individually per user. Organizations now have the flexibility to publish their Power BI reports to the cloud (Power BI service), or manage them on-premises (Power BI Report Server) and move to the cloud at their pace.

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @papanovn,

A quick question would be is have you tried to create a Power BI model and see how much memory it actually consumes?

I have no doubt that you are on track that it will be very large. But until you actually try and see how efficient the Vertipaq question is in terms of compression. As well as what data you need to bring into the Power BI model.

I also would suggest that for larger implementations they do suggest having a SSAS Tabular Model On-Premise and then connect using Live Query. This enables everything to run as efficiently as possible and still leverage the Vertipaq memory engine.

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

Yes, it is very fast and live queries over SSAS cubes works incredibly well and is fast. It sounds like in your case this will be even better once you can render Power BI reports directly on-premises in SSRS.

[papanovn · Accepted solution]

Thank you.

[v-ljerr-msft]

Hi @papanovn,

Could you accept the helpful reply as solution to help others who may have similar issue easily find the answer and close this thread?

Regards