A common best practice is to use CALCULATETABLE instead of FILTER for performance reasons. This article explores the reasons why and explains when FILTER might be better than CALCULATETABLE.  Read more

Distinct Count calculations in DAX are very fast compared to other engines. But when you have a large number of values, performance might be different depending on the query you write.  Read more

Understanding DAX query plans is a long process. This paper explains how to capture and read a DAX query plan, helping you to find possible optimizations of your DAX queries.  Read more

This article contains a short checklist of what you have to do in order to optimize the memory used by a data model in PowerPivot or in Analysis Services Tabular, including links to tools and resources that can help you…  Read more

SQL 2012 gives you two different xVelocity engines, with different capabilities and different scenarios of implementation, the paper will help you choose the right one or, at least, raise your curiosity about performing more tests on your specific scenario.  Read more

Memory settings in Analysis Services might be an important tuning of a correct setup, both for production and developer machines. Analysis Services 2012 can be installed in different ways and the new Tabular instance has new memory settings that are…  Read more

VertiPaq is the internal column-based database engine used by PowerPivot and BISM Tabular models. High cardinality columns might be the more expensive parts of a table. If you cannot remove a high cardinality column from a table, by using the…  Read more