SQL Server 2016/2017 BI Migration: Destinations Point to Power BI

• Power BI or Fabric are Microsoft’s direction for reporting and analysis services unless organizations consider third parties and competitors.
• The BI components can be migrated together or separately, depending on complexity and risk tolerance.
• This milestone event should be used to assess long-term data and BI strategies and whether the server stays on-premises or moves to a cloud solution.

SQL Server 2016 and 2017 are leaving Extended support (in July 2026 and Oct. 2027, respectively), and customers need to plan migrations for business intelligence (BI) workloads using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

The main challenges for these two components are the disruption to business operations during migration and the inevitable impact to downstream applications and users. Upgrading BI components is rarely just an IT project because the main users are business analysts outside of IT, and extra planning and coordination will be required. Some of the risk can be minimized by separating the migration into discrete workloads and avoiding upgrading an entire server at once. In extreme cases, when a full migration can’t be completed on time, SSRS deployments should be moved last, as they represent the least vulnerable part of SQL Server.