Forum Discussion
Modeling with new Data Marts vs Composite model
You have multiple competing values and it's always a balancing act. The best approach is dependent on your specific situation.
The more the departments have self-service control over data, the more likely you are to have redundant and/or fragmented data. The more you centralize shared data, the more you have to maintain and the less control each department has.
My rule of thumb is that if a data table is needed for multiple reports and/or multiple departments, then it should be maintained in a single location (e.g. a dataflow or datamart). If you need to load that table into multiple workspaces or other datamarts, that's OK. If you connect to that table via DirectQuery, then using it in multiple places doesn't even require storing more than one copy of the data.
Hi AlexisOlson
Thanks for your response.
Your proposal is what I was thinking of --> replacing my master dataset in the current existing composite model with this data mart functionality.
I do keep struggling with the fact, that data marts are also designed to serve "departmental self-service data".
-> In that ideology it could be a good idea to create datamarts for each department, but then I just need to live with the fact that I will have redundant tables over the tenant.
And then the next question pops up. --> Is it a good idea to load all data in dataflows and then distribute over the data marts, or would it be better/faster to load them directly into the department datamarts.
Thanks again for thinking with me!
Super UserYou have multiple competing values and it's always a balancing act. The best approach is dependent on your specific situation.
The more the departments have self-service control over data, the more likely you are to have redundant and/or fragmented data. The more you centralize shared data, the more you have to maintain and the less control each department has.
My rule of thumb is that if a data table is needed for multiple reports and/or multiple departments, then it should be maintained in a single location (e.g. a dataflow or datamart). If you need to load that table into multiple workspaces or other datamarts, that's OK. If you connect to that table via DirectQuery, then using it in multiple places doesn't even require storing more than one copy of the data.