Forum Discussion
Power BI Embedded Capacity memory & CPU limits - refreshing Import method
Hi Anonymous,
I don't know if you have already seen these metris that are added in Azure for PowerBI Embedded.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/power-bi-embedded-azure-memory-metric-available/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-alerts-now-availble-for-power-bi-embedded/
So now you can set some alerts when the memory or the query processing pass or reach some limits.
Hope it helps.
Thanos
We have the exact same problem
We hit the max on an A1 SKU in no time. We were forced to move to an A2 tier, which is DOUBLE the cost. So we switch our capacity to A1 in the evening, then the next morning switch back to A2, manually update the datasets which did not refresh overnight, and then run the day on A2. Come evening and we repeat the procedure.
Even on A2 we hit the maximum without any effort. In fact a single dashboard with not much data pushes us over the limit. And there is no warning - we get to know about it when customers phone in saying the visuals "show me a cross with a circle around it".
We use embedded.
What i see happening though is the memory usage does not come down. It steadily climbs during the day. Only if we pause and restart the server do we get the memory to drop. But then it starts climbing again... see the screen shot below. The Yellow circle is where we restart in the morning, and then it drops to about 500 MB but start to climb. The straight parts on the graphs is where there is NO activity... yet it consumes more than A1 SKU capacity. The spikes are where someone opens a single dashboard. You will see a single dashboard render (with really not much data) pushes it over the limit in no time - mostly because we start at such a high point even before it was rendered.
I have tried logging a call with MS TEchnical, only to find out i have to buy a service package, which I did, under protest... but then when i tried to log a support call it said I don't have the correct rights to log a service request... (I have the rights to buy it, but not use it??)
PBI is a great product, but MS is doing their best to make it unaffordable and unuseable at this point...
The reason that it grows is that it is cacheing the data, I understand. Your graph is very familiar to us! Having to manually switch tiers twice a day is a real pain, but definitely saves on the cost. We considered this but then tried other things first:
1. Avoid work in Power Query - push back changes into SQL Views or similar.
2. Logically break up the pbix so that the relevant data is only loaded when needed. Ok, we haven't done this but MS 'recommended' it. For example, keep data from different years in different pbixes, as most people look at the current year regularly but the previous years rarely.
3. Reduce the size of the pbix - remove columns from tables - especially fact tables, when they are not needed. This helped a lot.
4. Use Direct Query if possible. Haven't tried this as it means re-building a twenty page dashboard with a lot of complexity.
Your phrase " In fact a single dashboard with not much data pushes us over the limit. " is worrying. That shouldn't be happening - is your pbix size enormous? We are running about 55MB in A1 and it peaks at about 2-2.5GB, well within the 3GB limit.
roelf - let me know how you get on!