Forum Discussion

mpo's avatar
mpo
Helper II
8 years ago

Report Server data refresh options

Hi all,   We are looking into deploying PowerBI reports to our customers using the PowerBI Report Server. Our master data is in a Sql Server database(s).   We are trying to figure out the optima...
deployment
Refresh
Report Server
SSAS
mpo's avatar
mpo
Helper II
8 years ago

Thank you, that's useful.

 

What are the advantages of not using a dedicated Tabular SSAS?

 

We planned multiple reporst to share a data model.

Not sure if incremental/partitioned data refresh is possible in PBIRS hosted SSAS?

I also got an impression that SSAS tabular is easier to automatically manage and deploy for multiple environments.

 

 

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
8 years ago

Simplicity is a big advantage to not using dedicated SSAS.

 

There are also limitations within PBI when connecting directly to a dedicated SSAS - e.g. you're forced to create calculated columns and hierarchies within the SSAS model. The analysts on my team (fresh from their PBI training courses) can't stand this! They have to add columns to the SSAS model within SSDT, build the asdatabase, send it to infrastructure for deployment, then head back into PBI and refresh their data source. They find this cumbersome and want to work directly in PBI at all times.

 

Another reason for having a dedicated SSAS server (which I haven't mentioned before) could be if you need to scale SSAS/PBIRS differently.

  • mpo's avatar
    mpo
    Helper II
    8 years ago

    Thanks again, this makes sense.