With the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2016 , there are several options to use Analysis Services Tabular. SQL Server Standard : it includes Analysis Services Tabular, and it is available in two licensing models: Server + Client Access License (CAL)  Read more

If you are using Power BI Desktop or Power Pivot in Excel 2016, you should learn when and how you can use GROUPBY instead of SUMMARIZE. The SUMMARIZE function is very powerful and internally very complex, so it’s easy to find scenarios where you get unexpected  Read more

In a couple of weeks, I will move to Australia for 3 weeks, visiting Melbourne and Sydney for a number of events and training. This is the list of topics in public events you can attend (with link to registration pages – remember that SQL Saturday conferences  Read more

I recently wrote an article about how to Create Static Tables in DAX Using the DATATABLE Function . Such a new DAX feature (the DATATABLE function) will be likely used in the upcoming Analysis Services Tabular 2016, but it is not used neither in Power  Read more

I have experienced (on difference customer’s databases) some performance issues related to security in SSAS Tabular models. The symptoms are that certain queries, pivot table, or reports, have good performance when you connect as a database administrator,  Read more

This short blog post is a note that could help myself in the future, or anyone who is interested in writing a client tool for Analysis Services. When you establish a session to Analysis Services, you can run both DAX and MDX statements. In DAX, you can  Read more

I’m sitting at the bloggers table at the Day 1 keynote of PASS Summit 2015 and I try to recap the important news for the BI community. SQL Server Analysis Services 2016 CTP 3 will be available in a few days here , but Microsoft already announced the news  Read more

If you use Analysis Services Tabular, you should dedicate a good amount of time in hardware selection. Unfortunately, throwing money in expensive hardware configuration could be a very bad idea, resulting in your 1,500$ desktop running faster than your  Read more

Last week we launched a new page in SQLBI website: DAX Puzzle (you can also use www.daxpuzzle.com ). The idea is very simple: we describe a scenario, we ask to solve a problem in that scenario and we might provide some hint to help you finding the solution.  Read more

I am so happy to announce that The Definitive Guide to DAX is finally available! I and Alberto Ferrari spent one year writing this book, and several years collecting the knowledge necessary to do that. The complete title is The Definitive Guide to DAX:  Read more