Forum Discussion
Datamart
I was always intrigued (and appalled) by the concept of Direct Query access to Dataflows. Maybe that is what Datamarts are. That would explain why that "Do you want to create a Datamart instead" question keeps coming up.
My (limited) understanding is that it is an Azure SQL server by another name (and with opaque costs) that allows you to potentially circumvent your (maybe) IT department's limitations on setting up (on-premise or private cloud or Azure) SQL servers, and to subvert a (potential) company wide data governance/stewardship effort that may be based on a different process. What I find interesting is that Datamarts are suggested whenever I want to create a dataflow. I would think these two are rather different concepts.
Thank you for your answer.
I checked now if I can create something (table, view) in the SQL server database of a datamart via Azure Studio or SSMS. This does not work and is consistent with your explanation. So I would characterize it roughly as a "read only SQL database with a Power BI front end for reporting in a specific domain". Someone can correct me if this working definition is too narrow.
The MS documentation says:Use datamarts when you need to:
- Sort, filter, do simple aggregation visually or through expressions defined in SQL
- For outputs that are results, sets, tables, and filtered tables of data
- Provide accessible data through a SQL endpoint
- Enable users who don’t have access to Power BI Desktop
Best regards
ChristianI was always intrigued (and appalled) by the concept of Direct Query access to Dataflows. Maybe that is what Datamarts are. That would explain why that "Do you want to create a Datamart instead" question keeps coming up.
