Forum Discussion
Analysis Services - Connect live vs. import help
Microsoft EmployeeHi powerbi43,
When connecting live, no data from the Tabular model is imported into Power BI Desktop. Each time you interact with a visualization, Power BI Desktop queries the Tabular model and calculates the results you see. So it runs quickly and just the pbix file is holding about 300 MB.
When you connect with import model, all the items you selected like tables, columns, and measures in your Tabular model or perspective will be loaded into a Power BI Desktop model. So RAM usage on the server will steadily tick up. You can use Power BI Desktop’s advanced Query Editor to further filter what you want.
Please review this article:Analysis Services Tabular data in Power BI Desktop.
Best Regards,
Angelia
Thank you for the reply. I had read that article. Something is definitely amiss in my situation. The entire set of in-memory data in SSAS is only 300 MB. How could importing that same set of data into my local Power BI desktop make my server RAM usage jump from 3 GB to almost 32 GB and throw an error? Keep in mind I hadn't createed any visualations in Power BI desktop. I was just trying to "load" the data after doing my initial connection to SSAS.
I thought I had perhaps defined my relationships incorrectly in my tabular model, but they're fine. For now my solution is just to connect Live (not sure why you'd import in-memory data anyway). The default is import, which I used when creating my initial connection.
- v-huizhn-msft