Power BI XMLA-Endpoint: Next Gen Powerful Cloud SSAS Platform

1. Technology and platform are dynamic in nature, they evolve and grow. We have been using Microsoft SQL Service Analysis Service for slicing and dicing OLAP data from more than decades now. Tabular models in Analysis Services are databases that run in-memory or in Direct-Query mode, connecting to data from back-end relational data sources. By using state-of-the-art compression algorithms and multi-threaded query processor, the Analysis Services VertiPaq analytics engine delivers fast access to tabular data model.

Microsoft released Azure Analysis Services in 2017, a PAAS platform in Azure for SQL Service Analysis Service with benefits of cloud computing- scalability, easy to maintain, elasticity and pay as us use.

As Power BI too runs on the Analysis Services VertiPaq analytics engine, Microsoft now enabled XMLA Endpoint in Power BI Premium capacity. Power BI Workspaces use the XML for Analysis (XMLA) protocol for communications between client applications and the engine that manages your Power BI workspaces and datasets. These communications are through what are commonly referred to as XMLA endpoints. XMLA is the same communication protocol used by the Microsoft Analysis Services engine, which under the hood, runs Power BI's semantic modeling, governance, lifecycle, and data management. Data sent over the XMLA protocol is fully encrypted.

Now we can design & deploy SSAS tabular data model to Power BI Premium workspaces in the same way how we used to deploy it earlier to SSAS server or Azure Analysis Services. There is whole stack of tools now which make design and deployment of tabular data model to Power BI Premium using XMLA -Endpoint.

Power BI Premium XMLA-Endpoint is GA with below features now:

• Role membership. Dataset metadata through the XMLA endpoint can now be scripted to create, modify, or delete model roles for a dataset, set row-level security (RLS) filters, and set memberships for Azure Active Directory (AAD) users.
• Live connection. XMLA endpoint can be used to connect live to datasets. When migrating existing models from Azure Analysis Services to Power BI Premium, customers can live connect to the Power BI workspace and publish to the Power BI service.
• Service principal support. Users can now connect with service principals through the XMLA endpoint to automate unattended resource and service level operations such as provisioning workspaces, deploying models, and dataset refreshes.

Power BI Premium XMLA-Endpoint is going to deliver a lot of benefits as :

• Scalable & Powerful- XMLA endpoint has more powerful platform using compute power of Power BI Premium Capacity. One can easily scale up the compute and storages to best allocate huge data models and complex structures as Tabular cube.
• Improved Report Response Time- The reports which are deployed and hosted in Power BI services will perform better as the tabular model and the reports both will be sitting under same umbrella.
• Incremental Refresh- This is one of the rarest feature which makes delta load implementation in tabular data models getting deployed to Power BI Premium. It enables to get rid daily full load of data models and over-use the compute powers by re-loading similar unchanged data daily.
• Better Governance & Monitoring- Power BI Premium Capacity monitoring and governance platform now makes easy to manage and govern you all tabular data models deployed in Power BI Premium much closely and deeply.

I am an Microsoft Certified Data Architect & has 10 + years of working experience on Azure Cloud, Business Intelligence and Data Analytics. Please do reach me for any help to make you next Gen transitions more clean, optimized and efficient.