Triad SQL

Server Users

Group

3/29/2016

Melissa CoatesSolution Architect, BlueGranite

blue-granite.com

Blog: sqlchick.com

Twitter: @sqlchick

Power BIArchitecture, Integration Points, Implementation Options

Agenda:

Brief Overview and History of Power BI

Implementation Options & Architecture

Authoring Tools for Business Users

Service Architecture & Delivery Options

Types of Datasets, Data Sources & Refresh

Sharing & Distributing Content

Custom Development Options

Service Limits & Licensing

Bimodal BI: Use Cases for Power BI

Things to Consider Getting Started

Power BIArchitecture, Integration Points, Implementation Options

Overview

&

Evolution of Power BI

Set of tools targeted primarily at analysts & power users to facilitate

acquiring, cleansing, standardizing, modeling, presenting & sharing of data.

Components of Power BI

Power

Query

Power

Pivot

Power View,

Excel PivotTable,

Excel PivotChart

|------------- Power BI Desktop -----------|

|------------------- Excel ------------------|

Reports,

Dashboards,

Sharing,

Q&A

Power BI

Service

Mobile

|-- Web --|Edit

Queries

Data &

Relationships Report

Power BI

Mobile

Apps

|-- Mobile --|

Typical Users of Microsoft Reporting Tools

Reporting Services

Mobile Report Publisher (Datazen)

PerformancePoint

Visio Services

Power BI Desktop

Power Pivot

Power Query

Power Map

Report Builder

Power View

Excel

Corporate BI Self-Service BI

Evolution of Power BI

V1: Power BI for Office 365GA Release Feb 2014

Excel Add-Ins

V2: Power BI DashboardsGA Release July 2015

Excel Add-Ins or Power BI Desktop

Integrated with Office 365 +

SharePoint OnlineIndependent Software as a Service

Data must be replicated in

embedded data model (Power Pivot)

Support for embedded data model

or direct connectivity

Deprecated as of 3/31/2016;

customers required to migrate to V2

Scope: Self-Service BIScope: Self-Service BI +

elements of Corporate BI, Analytics

Toolsets are maturing; very fast

release cycles

Power BI V2 Primary Components

Power BI Desktop Power BI Service Power BI Mobile Apps

New tool of choice

for creating

queries, data

model, and reports

Native mobile apps

(iOS, Android, Windows)

for viewing &

interacting with

dashboards

The ‘Software as a

Service’ (SaaS) web

portal component

at powerbi.com for

sharing &

collaboration

If someone says “Power BI” they may be

referring to the Power BI Service specifically at PowerBI.com,

or to the ecosystem as a whole.

Excel

Add-InsPower Query

Power Pivot

Power View

Power BI V2 End-to-End

Authoring Tools

for Business Users

Authoring Environments

Power BI Desktop Excel Add-Ins Power BI Service

New tool of choice

for creating queries,

data model, and

reports

Monthly release cycle

for new features

PBIX format

Includes Power Query,

Power Pivot, and

Power View add-ins

Much slower release

cycle of new features

due to deep Excel

integration

XLSX format

The web portal component

for sharing & collaboration

Dashboards and Q&A must

be created in the web;

Reports can optionally be

edited in the web

Weekly release cycle for

new features

Tip: There’s no download ability (PBIX or XLSX) yet from the Power BI Service.

Since a report originally uploaded from PBI Desktop or Excel can be

modified in the web, you need to be careful with where the ‘original’ resides.

Power BI Desktop

Excel Add-Ins

Power BI Service

Authoring & Reuse of Power BI ObjectsA dashboard can

contain elements

from many reports.

A report can

reference data from

one dataset.

A single dataset can

be reused among

various reports.

Deciding Which Tool to Use?

Power BI Desktop Excel Add-Ins

You run an older Excel version

You have 32-bit Excel

You want the newest features as

quickly as possible

You want to access SaaS

connectors & other new sources

Release cycle: new Power BI Desktop

msi installer 1x / month *

You already have an Excel 2013 or 2016

click-to-run version that supports the

‘Power’ add-ins running in 64-bit mode

Your analysts feel strongly about using

Excel & don’t mind waiting for features

You want to use pivot tables, pivot

charts, and cube functions (will require publishing to OneDrive or SPO)

It’s likely you’ll upsize to SSAS Tabular

* Power BI Desktop updates monthly – all users who collaborate must be on same

version. It may be easiest for IT to push updated versions on a schedule.

Service Architecture

&

Delivery Options

Power BI Service Architecture

Image source: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-admin-power-bi-security/

Info about Enhanced In-Memory Tabular DB: Pg 14-15 Applied Microsoft Power BI by Teo Lachev

1 1

The Power BI Service is

built on Azure.

Web Front End cluster

handles connectivity &

authentication

Back End cluster

manages Power BI

Service activities

User data is uploaded

to Blob storage

Metadata is stored in

SQLDB

Public internet boundary

2

2

Azure

3

3

4

4

5

5

“Enhanced” In-Memory

Tabular DB to service queries

Cloud ServicesOn-Premises

Power BI Delivery Options

Power Pivot for SharePoint

Power BI Service

Third Party Integration

File Share

Public Website

Custom Application

1

Hybrid

2

3

5

6

Native Mode Reporting Services4

7

Power BI Service Standard method of delivery in V2

On-Premises Cloud Services

1

Custom ApplicationAPIs to expose a tile or report for embedding in an application

On-Premises Cloud Services

2

Public WebsiteReport published from Power BI Service to a Public Website

On-Premises Cloud Services

Note: Publish to web can be disabled by the system administrator.

3

Native Mode Reporting Services 2016Storage only for XLSX and PBIX; not fully integrated yet

4

On-Premises

File SharePower BI Desktop and/or Excel without the Power BI Service or Mobile Apps

On-Premises

5

Power Pivot for SharePoint

Not fully supported in SharePoint 2013.

Power Query will be supported in 2016.

6

On-Premises: SharePoint 2013 Architecture

Power Pivot for SharePoint6

On-Premises: SharePoint 2016 Architecture

Diagram coming soon with new

2016 architecture

Third Party IntegrationPower BI Desktop published to 3rd party platform

On-Premises

7

Power BI Delivery

Types of Datasets,

Data Sources,

& Refresh

Datasets

Types of DatasetsImported Dataset

An in-memory columnar data structure.

Limited to 250MB compressed in size which

applies to storage limits.

In this situation, the data is *stored* in the

dataset and imported to the Power BI Service.

Requires refresh schedule to stay current.

Imported datasets can be created various ways:

Pull

• Power BI Desktop

• Power Pivot Excel add-in

• SaaS Connector (SaaS Content Pack)

Push

• Streaming data from Azure Stream Analytics

• API library

Direct Query | Live Connection

Queries are live back to original data source.

Useful for:

• Utilizing existing data investments

• Larger datasets that cannot or shouldn’t

be replicated

• When row-level security is required

(via SSAS with EffectiveUserName)

No refresh schedule is required.

In this situation, the dataset in the Power BI

service is a connection string only.

DirectQuery is supported for:

• SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata (with Enterprise GW)

• SAP HANA (with Enterprise GW)

• Azure SQL DB

• Azure SQL DW

• Spark on HDInsight

Live Connection is supported for:

• SSAS Tabular (with Enterprise GW)

• SSAS Multidimensional (with Enterprise GW)

Using a Dataset Published to Power BIData imported into & refreshed in the Power BI Service

Using DirectQuery or Live ConnectionLive queries to source (Tiles are cached in the Power BI Service as images in

order to improve performance)

Data Sources & Refresh

Power BI Gateways

Personal Gateway Enterprise Gateway

Handles data refresh for data imported

into the Power BI Service via Azure

Service Bus.

Each individual user sets up their own

data refresh schedule. One gateway

can be installed per user.

Typically only needed for on-premises

data sources (not usually for cloud

sources).

If user is admin on machine: runs as

Service. Otherwise, runs on Application

(which requires user to be logged in

for refresh to succeed).

Handles data refresh for data imported into

the Power BI Service via Azure Service Bus.

Handles DirectQuery:

SQL Server

SAP HANA

Oracle

Teradata

Handles Live Connection (explore live):

SSAS (Tabular and Multidimensional)

Replacement for SSAS Connector

(speed is *significantly* better with EGW).

Third Party SaaS Content Packs

Sharing &

Distributing Content

Sharing Content

Options for Sharing Content

Share Dashboard GroupOrganizational

Content Pack

Share a read-only

dashboard from ‘My

Workspace’ with

another user

Intended for sharing

with a few select

colleagues

Recommendation:

use minimally; if

employee leaves

Group workspace for

datasets, reports,

and dashboards

Intended for team

collaboration

O365 unified groups

All group members

are set to read or

edit permissions

10GB size limit

Sets of datasets,

reports, and dashboards

Intended for broad

delivery across

numerous groups

User discovers via “Get

Data”

User can personalize a

copy in ‘My Workspace’

(and even re-share)

1 person 1 group many groups

Workspaces, Sharing, and Collaboration

Custom Development Options

Custom Development

Custom Visuals Power BI Developer Tools for

creation of custom visuals

Public Power BI Visuals Gallery

to download visuals and/or see

source code

Based on D3 (Data-Driven

Documents) JavaScript library

All existing visuals are in a

GitHub open source project

API Library

Power BI is Delivery Vehicle

API pushes data to dataset within the

Power BI Service (data is imported)

Limited to 250MB

Limited to 200 rows if streaming

(uses first-in-first-out method)

Application is Delivery Vehicle

Get reports or dashboard tiles from

Power BI Service

Embed in custom application

Service Limits

&

Licensing

Power BI Service Limits

# of reports per

dataset: 200

(Multi-page reports

still count as 1)

# of

datasets:

200

Size for imported dataset

(non-direct connect):

250MB compressed

# of

dashboards:

100

# of reports:

40,000

Workspace data storage:

1 GB (Free license)

10 GB (Pro license)

API calls:

Single push: 10,000 rows

Continuous push: 500 rows once per second

Max rows per table: 5,000,000 (or 2,000,000 if continuous)

Pending requests: 5

Per user account or group:

Per tenant: Global data storage: 10 GB x # of Pro licenses purchased

Sharing to a group > 500 members is

not supported

**Be sure to verify these as

things change very fast!**

Who Needs a Pro License?Freemium model: Free license & Pro license

Retail pricing of a Power BI Pro license is $9.99 / user / month

Both producers and consumers need a Pro license if any

‘paid’ features are being utilized.

Paid features include:

Data refresh more frequently than daily

Data streams in excess of 10k rows/hour

Data accessed via DirectQuery or Live Connection

Data accessed and refreshed via the Enterprise or Personal Gateway

Storage > 1GB for data models published and refreshed in Power BI Service

Publishing via organizational content packs

Publishing to a group workspace

Power BI V2 End-to-End

Bimodal BI

Bimodal BI & Analytics

Traditional

Corporate BI

Defined IT-driven processes

Reliable

Governed & secured

Standardized

Agile

Self-Service BI

Business-driven

Rapid delivery

“Less” governance

Exploration freedom

Two “modes” for development

& delivery of information

Use Cases for Power BI

Power BI used for

data shaping,

modeling, and

reporting(data is imported

into Power BI)

• Small individual self-service projects

• Data mashups (up to 250MB compressed in web)

• One-time or infrequent analysis

• ‘On the fly reporting’ with Q&A

• Standalone SaaS connectors

• APIs to programmatically push data to Power BI

Query Model Report

Power BI used for

reporting only(live queries to original

data source)

• DirectQuery or Live Connection to original data source

• Reports from source w/ higher data volumes

• Reports from source w/ row level security (SSAS)

Report Only

Bimodal BI: Where Power BI Can Fit

Self-Service BI Corporate BI

Upsize

Mashup of

different

data sources

Standalone SaaS

Connectors

(ex: SalesForce,

CRM)

Application

Integration

(APIs)

Machine

LearningStreaming

Data

Warehouse

SSAS Tabular

ModelExcel Data Model

(Power Pivot) Prototype

One-time or

infrequent

analysis

Augment

corporate

BI solutionsPower BI Reporting

Supply info

needed

very quicklyData

LakeAnalytical

DW & Analytics Environment

Typically: Imported Data Typically: Live Connections

Recap +

Questions

Recap of Main Points Various options, each with its own strengths and shortcomings, will

remain as viable choices for delivery:• Power BI Service (SaaS)

• Power BI Desktop and/or Excel Add-Ins Only (file share)

• Native Mode Reporting Services (storage only; not yet fully supported)

• Power Pivot for SharePoint (on-premises)

• 3rd Party (on-premises)

• Application integration & embedding in websites

The Power BI ecosystem is continually evolving and growing in its

role as a self-service BI tool, as well as elements of corporate BI

A hybrid approach can be utilized to take advantage of BI/DW assets

A purposeful “Bimodal BI” approach can attempt to balance many

different agile and traditional needs

Resources To FollowPower BI Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/

Weekly Power BI Service Updates

Monthly Power BI Desktop Updates

Power BI Support Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/powerbisupport/

Power BI Community Site: http://community.powerbi.com/

Support & Documentation

User Voice (ideas for product team)

File Downloads

GuyInACube YouTube Channel: aka.ms/guyinacube

Short videos from Adam Saxton

Things to Consider Getting Started Decision on using Power BI Desktop, or Excel, or both + training needs

Use of Groups, including integration of O365 unified groups with AD

Organizing content into Groups by subject area and/or user security

boundaries

Securing access to content and row-level security needs which can be met

using Live Connection to SSAS using EffectiveUserName via Enterprise

Gateway

Types of users; who will be consumers vs publishers and is there a process

for verification/approval of data models published

Data source types and usage (imported to Service vs DirectQuery)

Options for distributing, publishing, sharing content (file system, Power BI

Service, application integration, mobile apps)

Melissa Coates

Twitter: @sqlchick

Blog: sqlchick.com

Check “Presentations & Downloads” at sqlchick.com for this slide deck.

Creative Commons License:

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0

Thanks for Attending!