1. Welcome! Power BI User Group (PUG)
New York

2. Super Charge Power BI and What’s New with Azure Analysis Services
Christian Wade
Senior Program Manager
@_christianWade

3. Azure Analysis Services
Enterprise grade analytics engine as a service
Build rich semantic models
Transform complex data into business user friendly semantic models
Gain insights at the speed of thought
Gain instant insights with in-memory cache using your preferred visualization tools
Proven technology
Based on powerful, proven SQL Server Analysis Services
Provision and scale with ease
Easy to deploy, scale, and manage as a platform-as-a-service solution
Key points: Summarize key benefits for Azure Analysis Services
Azure Analysis Services helps you transform complex data from different data sources into a BI semantic model, so users in your organization can easily gain insights by connecting to the data models using tools like Excel, Power BI, and others to create reports and perform ad hoc data analysis
Talk Track
Transform Complex Data into rich BI semantic models: Azure Analysis Services Analysis Services helps you transform complex data into a single business user friendly data model making it easy for business users to understand and analyze data across different data sources.
Gain instant insights with in-memory cache using your preferred visualization tools : Not only can business users get insights from data easily using their preferred data visualization tool, whether it is Power BI, Excel or other major data visualization tools, but with the in-memory cache capabilities of Azure Analysis Services, users can gain insights over billions of rows of data at the speed of thought
Proven Technology: Azure Analysis Services is based on the proven analytics engine in SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services, that has helped organizations turn complex data into a trusted, single source of truth for years. This means that BI professionals who are familiar with SQL Server Analysis Services, tabular models can get started quickly and do not need to learn new tools or skills.
Analytics engine as-a-service (provision fast, scale faster): The same proven enterprise grade BI platform is now available as a fully managed service in Azure. With the power of the trusted Microsoft Cloud, you do not need to manage infrastructure on-premises and can benefit from the scalability of the cloud. Additionally you can use Azure Resource Manager to create and deploy an Azure Analysis Services instance within seconds, and use backup restore to quickly move your existing models to Azure Analysis Services and take advantage of the scale, flexibility and management benefits of the cloud. Scale up, scale down, or pause the service and pay only for what you use.
Azure Analysis Services is built for Hybrid BI - Organizations store data in the cloud and on-premises. Azure Analysis Services is built for hybrid data. Data can be access in the cloud, on-premises or a combination of both, enabling a hybrid solution. So - you do not have to move on-premises data to the cloud.
To summarize, Azure Analysis Services is simple to use – it is easy to get started, you can use your existing skills to create BI semantic models, and your favorite data visualizations tools to analyze your data.

4. Microsoft BI Platform DATA Model Analyze & author Deliver Visualize
Power BI
Azure Analysis Services
Power BI
Web
Embedded in your apps
Mobile
Cloud
On –premises data gateway
On-premises
Key points:
Azure Analysis Services, is based on the proven analytical engine in SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services. Customers can access data sources across on-premises and the cloud, model that data, and provide business users with a simplified view of their data to enable interactive self-service BI and data discovery using their preferred data visualization tool.
Easy to deploy, scale, and manage as a platform-as-a-service solution
Create a provision an Azure Analysis Service server in seconds.
Elastic scale to move up and down with your business needs.
Reduce the burden of managing infrastructure with a fully managed Analysis Services in the cloud.
Integrate data from anywhere. Build your semantic model from modern data sources like Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL DW as well as on-prem data like SQL Server 2016
Connect to your semantic model with your favorite BI visualization tool and interact with data at scale and the speed.
SQL Server
Analysis Services
SQL Server Reporting Services
Excel
Power BI Desktop

5. Connection Types in Power BI
Import
Direct Query
Live Connection to AS
Azure AS

6. Azure Analysis Services Architecture
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Azure Analysis Services Architecture
Cloud data sources
Cloud visualization tools
Azure Analysis Services
SQL Database
Other data sources
DirectQuery
DAX
Power BI
Import
MDX
SQL Data Warehouse
Gateway
On-premises data sources
Authoring and development tools
On-premises visualization tools
Other data sources
SQL Server
Visual Studio
Excel
Azure AS other features
Scale up/down
Pause/resume
99.9% uptime SLA (GA)
New automation opportunities
DirectQuery
Import
Power BI Desktop
Third party BI tools
Oracle, Teradata
Note: not all capabilities available at public preview
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

7. Azure Analysis Services capabilities at a glance
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Azure Analysis Services capabilities at a glance
Management/platform
Fully managed Platform-as-a-Service
99.9% uptime SLA
Elastic scale up/down
Pause & resume
Up to 400 GB memory per server
SSAS management tool compatibility: SSMS, SQL Profiler, Deployment Wizard, …
Azure Active Directory
Azure B2B support
Application service principals
Backup/restore
Unified Gateway
Consumption
Full DAX & MDX support
PowerBI.com
Power BI Desktop
Excel
3rd party tools
S8/S9:
East US 2
West US
Southeast Asia
West Europe
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

8. Unified Gateway

9. 11/20/ :55 PM
1200 Compatibility Level Azure Analysis Services / SQL Server Analysis Services 2016
Performance and scalability
Parallel partition processing
NUMA awareness and memory allocator (SP1)
Super DAX
Developer Tools
Tabular Model Explorer
Integrated workspace server
DAX formula editing
Modeling and analytics
Bi-directional cross filters
Calculated tables
Display folders
Translations
Over 50 new DAX functions
DirectQuery enhancements
Manageability
Tabular Object Model (TOM)
Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL)
Modeling and analytics
Bi-directional cross filters
Many-to-many dimension scenarios without need to write complex DAX formulas
For whole table, not just a measure
Various use cases such as account balance, currency conversion, distinct count of attributes
Calculated tables
Dynamically generate a table based on a DAX formula.
Various use cases including role-playing dimensions
Some performance improvements available
Display folders
Present model elements and measures by business function in Pivot Tables and in Power BI
Translations
DirectQuery enhancements
Data is up to date with no management of loading the in-memory cache
Big data sets that don’t fit into memory
New data sources: APS / SQL DW, Oracle, Teradata
Support for MDX queries (Pivot Tables)
Improved query generation resulting in faster performance
Row-level security defined with DAX filters
Over 50 new DAX functions
DATEDIFF, SELECTCOLUMNS, SUMMARIZECOLUMNS, CROSSFILTER
Manageability
Tabular Object Model (TOM)
Tables, columns, relationships – not cubes, measure groups, dimensions
Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL)
JSON representation of TOM – with commands for manageability such as create/alter database, backup, restore, attach, detach
Performance and scalability
NUMA awareness and memory allocator
The in-memory engine in SP1 maintains a separate job queue on each NUMA node
The Intel TBB-based scalable allocator that provides separate memory pools for every core. As the number of cores increases, the system can scale almost linearly
Parallel partition processing
Super DAX
Strict evaluation of IF/SWITCH, Variables
Some cases just restoring a 2014 model to 2016 provides significant DAX performance benefits
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

10. 11/20/ :55 PM
1400 Compatibility Level Azure Analysis Services / SQL Server Analysis Services 2017
Data connectivity
Rich set of data sources
Data transformations and mashups with Power Query Formula Language
Modeling and analytics
Detail Rows
Enhanced support for ragged hierarchies
Object level security
Developer tools
SSDT for VS 2017
DAX Editor for SSDT and SSMS
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

11. Demo

12. Thank you for Attending!
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