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ccesarrg's avatar
ccesarrg
Regular Visitor
3 years ago
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Power BI Dataset vs SSAS Cubes

I'm need of investigating if move from SSAS Cubes to PBI Datasets instead would be a great thing. I need to know this points:   Processing time for both cube and dataset - which is faster? User t...
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  • tackytechtom's avatar
    tackytechtom
    3 years ago

    Hi ccesarrg ,

     

    I guess the answer to your question is a typical "it depends". Power BI datasets is a superset of SSAS / AAS meaning that there might be some features that you cannot use in SSAS / AAS but you can in PBI. Also, new features might appeear later in SSAS / AAS. Having saiid that if you have security requirements to store data on-prem SSAS could be the option to go, although you could also lock in your Power BI Premium Capacity into your VNet if that might cover such a security concern.

     

    There is tons of stuff out there where the three are compared to each other. Here a video by Chris Wagner which I find useful where he covers both of your questions:

     

    Power BI Q&A - SSAS vs AAS vs Power BI Premium - YouTube

     

    Concerning migrating from SSAS / AAS to Power BI Premium. I was part of a project where we did this and that went surprisingly easy moslty due to the XMLA endpoints. You could even use Visual Studio to deploy the model to a Power BI Premium workspace (while I strongly recommend to use Tabular Editor).

     

    Hope this helps at least a bit!

     

    /Tom
    https://www.tackytech.blog/
    https://www.instagram.com/tackytechtom/

     

tackytechtom's avatar
tackytechtom
Most Valuable Professional
3 years ago

Hi ccesarrg ,

 

I guess the answer to your question is a typical "it depends". Power BI datasets is a superset of SSAS / AAS meaning that there might be some features that you cannot use in SSAS / AAS but you can in PBI. Also, new features might appeear later in SSAS / AAS. Having saiid that if you have security requirements to store data on-prem SSAS could be the option to go, although you could also lock in your Power BI Premium Capacity into your VNet if that might cover such a security concern.

 

There is tons of stuff out there where the three are compared to each other. Here a video by Chris Wagner which I find useful where he covers both of your questions:

 

Power BI Q&A - SSAS vs AAS vs Power BI Premium - YouTube

 

Concerning migrating from SSAS / AAS to Power BI Premium. I was part of a project where we did this and that went surprisingly easy moslty due to the XMLA endpoints. You could even use Visual Studio to deploy the model to a Power BI Premium workspace (while I strongly recommend to use Tabular Editor).

 

Hope this helps at least a bit!

 

/Tom
https://www.tackytech.blog/
https://www.instagram.com/tackytechtom/