Updated: October 3, 2024 (October 3, 2024)

  Charts & Illustrations

Power BI Data Limits by Platform

My Atlas / Charts & Illustrations

713 wordsTime to read: 4 min
Andrew Snodgrass by
Andrew Snodgrass

Andrew analyzes and writes about Microsoft's data management, business intelligence, and machine learning solutions, as well as aspects of licensing... more

The core data solution in Power BI is the semantic data model (also called dataset). Data models provide a relational data structure (semantic layer) where the data is gathered from multiple sources and stored in a relational format for analysis. They follow a traditional star-schema structure and contain tables with rows and columns, relationships between tables that link data together, and the ability to create and include dimensions and measures. Data models use the SQL Server Analysis Services engine and are compatible with existing Analysis Services Tabular models.

Data Storage

Semantic data models can use various modes to query data, which may help organizations determine how to architect data storage for use by Power BI:

Import mode stores the results in Power BI storage in a format much like a database or data mart. It provides a high level of performance for reports, but it also consumes the most amount of storage and memory compared to tabular models.

DirectQuery mode can perform near-real-time queries of select Microsoft and non-Microsoft database products and services by using a Microsoft distributed query technology (effective for large databases and data warehouses) that performs queries at the source.

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