Cloud BI with Azure Analysis

Services

Sergiy Lunyakin

About me

Agenda

• BI components and Azure

• Analysis Services in the cloud

• Performance levels

• Data sources and exploration

• Management and development

Traditional BI components and Azure

Data Factory

Azure SQL database

SQL DW

Function

s

Analysis ServicesPower BI

Analytical

dashboards

Web & mobile apps

Operational reports

Insight

Data Management solution for analytics in

cloud

Model & ServePrep & Train

HDInsight /

Spark / ADLA

DATA INTELLIGENCE ACTION

Store

Azure Blobs

Ingest

Data Factory

Azure Machine Learning &

Machine Learning Server

Cosmos

DB

SQL Data

Warehouse

Analysis Services

Azure Data Lake

Event Hubs

IoT Hub

SQL

Database

Logs, Files and

media

(unstructured)

Business/Custom

apps

(structured)

Logs, Files, Web

Services

Sensors and

Devices

(unstructured)

Polybase

Azure Data Catalog

Data Governance

Azure Key Vault

Key Management

Azure ExpressRoute

Private Connections

Operations Management Suite

Monitoring

Excel

3RD PARTY TOOLS

Analysis Services in the cloud

• Fully managed SSAS Tabular engine in the Azure Cloud (PaaS)

• 99.9% uptime SLA

• Scale Out (soon)

• Elastic Scale Up/Down

• Pause and resume resources

• Azure Active Directory & Azure B2B support

• Firewall

• Backup/restore

• Cloud and On-Premise (over Gateway) data sources

• Familiar tools (SSDT, SSMS, PowerShell)

Azure Analysis Services Architecture

Excel

Third party

BI tools

Cloud data sources

SQL Database

SQL

Data

Warehouse

Direct Query

Cached Model

Power BI

Power BI

Embedded (GA)

SQL Server

Oracle,

Teradata

Other

data sources

Power BI

Desktop

Visual Studio

Authoring and

development tools

On-premises

data sources

Direct Query

Cached Model

Gatewa

y

Other data

sources

Cloud

visualization tools

On-premises

visualization tools

Azure

Analysis Services

Org AAD Authentication

• Supports only Azure Active Directory

organizational accounts

• Supports AAD B2B (invite users from another AAD

tenant)

• Workaround for LiveId

• Create a new account in default AAD domain

(*.onmicrosoft.com)

• Set as Administrator during service provisioning

Feature Comparison

Feature Developer Basic Standard

Perspectives ● ●

Multiple Partitions ● ●

DirectQuery Storage mode ● ●

Translations ● ● ●

DAX Calculations ● ● ●

Row-level Security ● ● ●

In-memory Storage ● ● ●

Back up and restore ● ● ●

Performance levels

LEVEL QPUS MEMORY (GB) SLA PRICE

B1 40 10 99.9 $319.92/mo; $0.43/hr

B2 80 20 99.9 $639.84/mo; $0.86/hr

S0 40 10 99.9 $602.64/mo; $0.81/hr

S1 100 25 99.9 $1,510.32/mo; $2.03/hr

S2 200 50 99.9 $3,020.64/mo; $4.06/hr

S4 400 100 99.9 $6,033.84/mo; $8.11/hr

S8 320 200 99.9 $7,722.72/mo; $10.38/hr

S9 640 400 99.9 $15,445.44/mo;

$20.76/hr

Developer 20 3 None $98.21/mo; $0.132/hr

Query processing units (QPUs)

• Unit of measure in Azure Analysis Services

• 20 QPUs is about 1 pretty fast core

Demo

Data sources

Cloud On-premises*

SQL database SQL Server

SQL Data Warehouse APS

Oracle Oracle Database

Teradata Teradata Database

Azure Blob Storage – 1400

Comp level

MySQL Database

Azure Data Lake Storage -

1400

……

* On-premises data sources require On-premises Data Gateway installation

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/analysis-services/analysis-services-gateway

https://docs.microsoft.co

m/en-us/azure/analysis-

services/analysis-services-

datasource

Unified Gateway

Explore your data and connection

• Connection to

asazure://<region>.asazure.windows.net/<serv

ername>

• Used port 443

• Latest client providers are required

Cloud On-premises

Power BI Service Power BI Desktop

Power BI Embedded – coming

soon

Excel

SSMS

Explore your data and connection

• SSMS - Enable Azure AD authentication for SSAS in SSMS 2016

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL

Server\Microsoft Analysis Services\Settings] "AS AAD Enabled"="True"

• Excel – Windows Authentication is not supported yet, User/Password only

• Power BI Service – connect from Power BI Desktop, publish to web.

Connection from web is not supported yet

• Impersonation

Cloud sources/On-Premises with SQL Authentication – Service Account.

On-Premises with Windows Authentication – User/Password, In-Memory

Only

Management and Development for AAS

• Azure Portal

• ARM Template

• PowerShell

• SSMS

• SSDT+DAX Editor

• DAX Studio

• Tabular Editor

Management and Development for AAS

• AAS Web Designer - Preview

• Create a new data model (Azure SQL DB/DW)

• Edit existed model

• Create relationships and measures

• GitHub integration

• Import Power BI model

• Backup and Restore from Blob Storage

Processing

Cloud On-premises

Azure Automation + PowerShell SSMS

Azure Data Factory – Custom

Activity

SSIS: SSAS DDL Task, SSAS

OLEDB+SQL Task

Azure Data Factory v2 – SSIS

package

SSDT

Azure functions + .Net PowerShell:

Invoke-ProcessASDatabase

RESTful API

Demo

Troubleshooting and monitoring

• Ensure that you use the latest drivers

• Clear Azure AD cache

• C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\

• Delete the AADCacheOM or .IdentityService folder

• xEvents Trace

• Stream

• Custom solution to file (Christian Wade)

Summary

• PaaS Analysis Services Tabular engine

• Enterprise-grade data modeling in the cloud bi solutions

• No CAPEX

• Low OPEX – pay for only what you use

• Go from conception to insight in hours

• Flexible scale

• Pausing and resuming

Links

• https://opbuildstorageprod.blob.core.windows.net/output-

pdf-files/en-us/Azure.azure-documents/live/analysis-

services.pdf

• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-

us/documentation/videos/index/

• https://feedback.azure.com/forums/556165-azure-analysis-

services

• https://github.com/Microsoft/Analysis-Services

Questions?