Power BI data layer on SQL server or on SSAS

[Anonymous]

In our company, before Power BI existed, a SSAS cube was built (getting data from SQL server ) for analysis purpose.  And then there were a number of Power BI dashboards built on top of the SSAS (data model in SSAS) and a number of Pbi dashboards built on top of SQL server (data model in pbi).

Our data set was not that big, I doubt it would ever exceed 1 million rows. We are dealing with probably 10 thousands rows regularly. I am new to SSAS.  I wonder if there is a point using Cube and build dashboards over it instead of direct pull data and build model in Power BI?  It seems there are so much overlap between these two.

Now we are considering to move all the dashboards (and create new ones) to one single data source, either SQL server or SSAS.  Which one makes more sense?  I am leaning towards SQL server -> Power BI directly, but I am new to SSAS.  Any suggestion is appreciated. 

Thanks.

[parry2k · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous Given such a small dataset, I would go with SQL Server and Power BI route and remove SSAS completely. To discuss it further, you can reach out to me directly via email (it is in my signature) and we can go over the pros and cons of both solutions.

Good luck!

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