When will Multidimensional and Tabular be merged?

[BDJensen]

What is the roadmap for merging Tabular and Multidimensional, if any?

Best regards

Bjorn D. Jensen

[cwebb]

I can imagine how Tabular and Multidimensional could be merged, and while there would be benefits from doing this I don't think they would be significant. I would rather Microsoft concentrated on developing new features for both platforms - features that play to each platform's individual strengths.

Chris

[marcorusso]

There is ONE features I would love to see: VertiPaq engine instead of OLAP engine for Multidimensional.

We know it would be possible... VertiPaq doesn't even know DAX, it would be a perfect stranger to MDX, too! 🙂

[regbac]

Hi Bjørn,

if your question is about when will it be possible to connect to Multidimensional from PowerBI than have a look at this item :

https://support.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi/suggestions/6606693-sql-server-analysis-services-...

It is planned - making PowerBI a true enterprise tool -  but unfortunately without a date.

Cheers

Régis

[JenUnderwood · Accepted solution]

There are no plans to merge Multidimensional and Tabular. There are plans for connectivity to both with Tabular already enabled today. To view planned feature requests, check out User Voice https://support.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi.

Thanks

[Matusa69]

MD and Tabular co-exists very well because both have different workload. MD is more Enterprise ready than Tabular and require less HW resources (CPUs and Memory). My suggestion is to understand the differences between models and choose the one or other depending by the project request.

[andre]

I would be very careful stating that either Tabular or Multidimensional is more or less enterprise ready or that one requires more or less hardware resources than the other.

Here is a good whitepaper that helps you decided which one to use and when.  My personal rule of thumb is to consider Tabular first and use Multidimensional as a Plan B option.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh994774.aspx

[Steven_Wang]

Interesting, as name suggests that they are very different. I will think more likely that Tabular mode will be more and more mature and more functionalities add-in.