Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Level up your Power BI skills this month - build one visual each week and tell better stories with data! Get started

Reply
Anonymous
Not applicable

Azure SQL Datawarehouse + DirectQuery + Power BI = ?

Dear Community,
 
I have a question :

In a Big Data Architecture (Data Lake Store), is connecting Power BI to Azure SQL Datawarehouse through DirectQuery not to heavy to support for it ?
It's not going to saturate the dababase ?
 
Thank you for your answers.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Anonymous
Not applicable

@Anonymous In my opinion DQ is valueable for extremely large datasets that you can't stick in Azure Analysis Services, if you can - I'd recommend adding the AS layer and having Power BI live connect to that. You'll get much better performance and you won't need to model in the PBI reports. If you are "at scale" where that isn't feasible, you just need to ensure you are tuning your queries in the WH to be as performant as possible because every interaction by a report user will execute a query. So you will need to do some anlysis on expected workload and user base to understand the type of performance/sizing you require for the WH to support internal and external workloads.

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3
Anonymous
Not applicable

@Anonymous In my opinion DQ is valueable for extremely large datasets that you can't stick in Azure Analysis Services, if you can - I'd recommend adding the AS layer and having Power BI live connect to that. You'll get much better performance and you won't need to model in the PBI reports. If you are "at scale" where that isn't feasible, you just need to ensure you are tuning your queries in the WH to be as performant as possible because every interaction by a report user will execute a query. So you will need to do some anlysis on expected workload and user base to understand the type of performance/sizing you require for the WH to support internal and external workloads.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Thank you for your answer !

 

So, is AS + LiveConnect a suitable solution for a large company with a lot of users ?

Anonymous
Not applicable

@Anonymous  Yes, it is from an enterprise reporting standpoint. There are a whole slew of ways in which you can implement solutions, but from an enterprise level AS should be part of your solution to support larger models and needs for enterprise reporting.

Helpful resources

Announcements
April Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - April 2026

Check out the April 2026 Power BI update to learn about new features.

Fabric SQL PBI Data Days

Data Days 2026 coming soon!

Sign up to receive a private message when registration opens and key events begin.

New to Fabric survey Carousel

New to Fabric Survey

If you have recently started exploring Fabric, we'd love to hear how it's going. Your feedback can help with product improvements.

Power BI DataViz World Championships carousel

Power BI DataViz World Championships - June 2026

A new Power BI DataViz World Championship is coming this June! Don't miss out on submitting your entry.