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

July 7 - July 17 | Round 2 of the Power BI Dataviz World Championships. Don't miss your chance! Learn more

Reply
francesco_beqom
Frequent Visitor

Is a Power BI dataset a NoSQL database or an RDBMS database?

I'm trying to render the cost of our Azure infrastructure on Power BI. 

 

In order to do so I use the Azure Cost Management connector in Power BI Desktop. 

 

azure-cost-management-00b

 

The tool is easy to use but it's slow and you can withdraw a limited number of months. 

 

So I exported to CSV every single month of our cloud consumption and I stored that on an Azure Sotrage Account. 

And betweent he connecotrs I found out that I could easily query the CSV direcly from the Storage Account. 

 

Storage BI.png

 

This was mindblowing! 

As long as the CSVs have the same columns Power BI can squiz them together! 

You can query the Storage Account like it was a NoSQL database!

 

I was able to siphone 3 years of data (36 CSV for a total of more than 10Gb) in less than 10 minutes. 

In the other hand the official Azure Cost Management connector in Power BI Desktop takes just to refresh 12 months of data takes 1:30h. 

 

I'm going to publish the dataset but I now have a question: What's behind a Power BI dataset? Is that a NoSQL database or a RDBMS database? 

 

 

0 REPLIES 0

Helpful resources

Announcements
FabCon and SQLCon Barcelona 2026

FabCon & SQLCon – Barcelona 2026

Join us in Barcelona for FabCon and SQLCon, the Fabric, Power BI, SQL, and AI community event. Save €200 with code FABCMTY200.

60 days of Data Days Carousel

Data Days 2026

Join Data Days 2026: 60 days of free live/on-demand sessions, challenges, study groups, and certification opportunities.

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.