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binitafulpagare's avatar
binitafulpagare
Kudo Collector
1 month ago
Solved

Direct Lake

Hi everyone, Direct Lake is often described as one of Microsoft's most significant innovations for Power BI and Fabric. For those using Direct Lake in production: How has it performed compared to ...
data science
  • v-kathullac's avatar
    v-kathullac
    1 month ago

    Hi binitafulpagare  , 

    Below are the few points that resolves your issue.

    • Organizations still choose Import mode when they need highly optimized performance, complex DAX support, or advanced semantic model capabilities.
    • Import mode is suitable for smaller datasets, stable reporting requirements, and scenarios where scheduled refreshes are acceptable.
    • Direct Lake is preferred for large-scale analytics where data is already in OneLake and near real-time access with minimal refresh management is required.
    • Enterprise decisions are mainly based on Data volume and growth,User concurrency,Report complexity,Refresh requirements,Capacity utilization.
    • Many organizations use a hybrid approach: Direct Lake for large-scale data workloads and Import mode for curated or highly optimized reporting models.
    •  

    Thanks,

     

    Chaithanya.

     
     

     

v-kathullac's avatar
v-kathullac
Community Support
1 month ago

Hi binitafulpagare  , 

Below are the few points that resolves your issue.

  • Organizations still choose Import mode when they need highly optimized performance, complex DAX support, or advanced semantic model capabilities.
  • Import mode is suitable for smaller datasets, stable reporting requirements, and scenarios where scheduled refreshes are acceptable.
  • Direct Lake is preferred for large-scale analytics where data is already in OneLake and near real-time access with minimal refresh management is required.
  • Enterprise decisions are mainly based on Data volume and growth,User concurrency,Report complexity,Refresh requirements,Capacity utilization.
  • Many organizations use a hybrid approach: Direct Lake for large-scale data workloads and Import mode for curated or highly optimized reporting models.
  •  

Thanks,

 

Chaithanya.

 
 

 

binitafulpagare's avatar
binitafulpagare
Kudo Collector
1 month ago

Hi v-kathullac,

Thank you for the detailed explanation and for clearly outlining the scenarios where Import mode and Direct Lake are most appropriate.

I appreciate your comparison of the two approaches and the emphasis on factors such as data volume, user concurrency, report complexity, refresh requirements, and capacity utilization when selecting the right storage mode. The point about many organizations adopting a hybrid approach by combining Direct Lake for large-scale analytics with Import mode for curated, highly optimized reporting is particularly insightful.

Thank you again for sharing these practical recommendations. They provide valuable guidance for understanding how organizations evaluate and implement different semantic model strategies in Microsoft Fabric.