MS BI fans, join us for the next Atlanta MS BI and Power BI Group meeting on November 4, Monday, at 6:30 PM at the Microsoft office in Alpharetta. Stacey Jones will present Power BI options with Python. Accelebrate will sponsor the meeting. And I will share some tips demoing the latest Power BI Desktop features, such as the new ribbon, decomposition tree and AI integration. For more details, visit our group page and don’t forget to RSVP (fill in the RSVP survey if you’re planning to attend).
Presentation:
Integrating Power BI with Python
Date:
December 2nd, 2019
Time
6:30 – 8:30 PM ET
Place:
Microsoft Office (Alpharetta) 8000 Avalon Boulevard Suite 900 Alpharetta, GA 30009
Overview:
Python is well suited for Data Science and big data professionals. It has been voted as the most popular programming language in 2019. Microsoft made big investments in open-source R and Python, especially to extend Power BI. Join this session to learn how you can integrate Python with Power BI. Learn how to use Python in these ways:
· Use Python as a data source
· Transform data
· Produce beautiful visualizations
Speaker:
Stacey Jones specializes in mentoring and guiding firms in their efforts to build a modern Data, AI & BI governance programs that empower their business with Self-Service BI and Data Science capabilities. He currently serves as the Principal Data Solutions Architect at the Atlanta Microsoft Technology Center (MTC).
Sponsor:
Don’t settle for “one size fits all” training. Choose Accelebrate, and receive hands-on, engaging training precisely tailored to your goals and audience! Our on-site training offerings range from ASP.NET training and SharePoint training to courses on ColdFusion, Java™, C#, VB.NET, SQL Server, and more. Accelebrate.com
Prototypes with Pizza
“New ribbon, decomposition tree, and AI integration in Power BI Desktop” by Teo Lachev
https://prologika.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/logo.png00Prologika - Teo Lachevhttps://prologika.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/logo.pngPrologika - Teo Lachev2019-11-28 08:49:492021-02-17 01:02:02Atlanta MS BI and Power BI Group Meeting on December 2nd
At Ignite 2019 Microsoft announced the public preview of large datasets in Power BI Premium. This is a significant milestone as now datasets can grow up to the capacity’s maximum memory (previously, the max size was 10 GB with P3 plan), thus opening the possibility of deploying organizational semantic models to Power BI. I consider this feature mostly suitable for organizational BI as I don’t imagine business users dealing with such large data volumes. I tested large datasets during its private preview, and I’d like to share some notes.
The Good
Today, BI developers can deploy organizational semantic models to three Analysis Services Tabular SKUs: SQL Server Analysis Services, Azure Analysis Services, and now Power BI Premium. SQL Server Analysis Services is the Microsoft on-prem offering and it aligns with the SQL Server release schedule. Traditionally, Azure Analysis Services has been the choice for cloud (PaaS) deployments. However, caught in the middle between SQL Server and Power BI, the AAS future is now uncertain given that Microsoft wants to make Power BI as your one-stop destination for all your BI needs. From a strategic perspective, it makes sense to consider Power BI Premium for deploying organizational semantic models because of the following main benefits:
Always on the latest – Both AAS and SQL Server lag in features compared to Power BI Premium. For example, composite models and aggregations are not in SQL Server 2019 and Azure Analysis Services. By deploying to Power BI, which is also powered by Analysis Services Tabular, your models will always be on the latest and greatest.
Feature parity – As I explain in my “Power BI Feature Discrepancies for Data Acquisition” blog, some Power BI features, such as Quick Insights, Explain Increase/Decrease, Power Query, are not supported with live connections to Analysis Services. By hosting your models in Power BI Premiums, these features are now supported because Power BI owns the data, just like you import data in Power BI Desktop and then publish the model.
The Bad
As a Power BI Premium feature, large datasets will require planning and purchasing a premium capacity. Given that you need at least twice the memory to fully process a model (less memory should be required if you process incrementally), you must size accordingly. For example, a 15 GB model would require at least 30 GB of memory to fully process, bringing you into the P2 plan territory. Memory is the most important constraint for Tabular. Unlike SQL Server, which doesn’t license by memory (you can add as much memory you like without paying a dime more in licensing fees), Power BI Power BI Premium plans cap the capacity memory. So, you’ll end up having a dedicated P1 or P2 plan for hosting your organizational semantic model, and another P plan(s) for self-service BI.
I’d like to see elastic scaling happening to Power BI Premium at some point in future. Instead of boxing me into a specific plan, which more than likely will be underutilized, I’d like to see Power BI Premium scaling up and down on demand. This should help lowering the cost.
The Ugly
The lack of DevOps in Power BI Premium will put another hole into your budget. Unlike SQL Server, where you pay only for production use, no special DEV or QA environments and licensing options exist in Power BI Premium. So, you must plan for additional premium capacities, such as for three separate capacities: PROD, DEV, and QA (I know of organizations that need many more DevOps environments). At this price point, even large organizations will reconsider the licensing cost of hosting their models in Power BI. How about leaving QA and DEV on prem? This would require coding for the least common denominator which defeats the benefit of deploying to Power BI Premium. You can get innovative and attempt to reduce licensing cost by purchasing Azure A plans for DEV and QA and stopping the A capacities when they are not in use, but I wonder how many organizations will be willing to go through the pain of doing this. The Cloud should make things easier, right?
Large datasets will open another deployment option for hosting organizational semantic models. This might be an attractive option for some organizations and ISVs. Others will find that staying on-prem could lower their licensing cost. Once the Power BI Premium XMLA endpoint supports write operations (promised for December 2019 in the roadmap), BI developers can use a tool of their choice, such as Tabular Editor or Visual Studio (I personally find Power BI Desktop not suitable for organizational model development, mainly because of its slow performance, lack of source control and extensibility) to develop and deploy semantic models that are always on the latest features and unifying BI on a single platform: Power BI.
https://prologika.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/logo.png00Prologika - Teo Lachevhttps://prologika.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/logo.pngPrologika - Teo Lachev2019-11-10 10:24:122019-11-10 10:24:12Power BI Large Datasets: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Now that SQL Server 2019 is officially here, I was eager to try it out. My upgrade/reinstall experience ran into several issues that I thought might be worth sharing:
Upgrade/reinstall fails with “An error occurred for a dependency of the feature causing the setup process for the feature to fail.” With no indication what dependency failed. I solved it by extracting the iso file into a folder instead of mounting it.
Analysis Services Tabular fails to start with “An error occurred when loading the ‘ASSP’, from the file, ‘\\?\D:\MSSQLSERVER\SSAS\Data\ASSP.0.asm.xml’.” This error was caused by changing the Analysis Services Tabular default folders to another drive. It could be related to my setup, such as permissions granted to that drive. I fixed it by leaving the SQL Server and Analysis Services default folders.
The Polybase services can’t start and show perpetually “Starting” in the Windows Services applet. Consequently, the SQL Server Database Engine can’t be stopped. This was solved by enabling the TCP/IP protocol in the SQL Server Configuration Manager.
Still an open issue although not a blocker – Any right-click action in SSMS connected to Analysis Services Tabular results in a significant delay.
My wife bought a pack of replacement water filters from Amazon. It was tagged as “Amazon’s choice”. The product listing showed the manufacturer name and it had a nice product photo advertising genuine filters. Except that there were all fake, which we discovered quickly by the output water pressure. The water coming out of a filter should have lower pressure while there was no difference with the “genuine” filter as though there was no filtering going on at all. And the water had a bad aftertaste. So, we call the manufacturer. They compared the batch number from the package (manufactured in China) and found it fake. That filter could have had some Chinese poison in it and Amazon would have sold it under “Amazon’s choice”. BTW, when we reported this to Amazon, the product was listed under a different seller.
There is a lot of noise (mostly vendor-induced propaganda as previously with Big Data) around AI, ML, and other catchy flavors of predictive analytics. I have a lot of respect for Amazon and I’m sure they know a lot about ML. Yet, fake products sneak in undetected and bad people find ways to cheat the system. In fact, I don’t think that advanced analytics is needed to solve this problem. All Amazon has to do is let big name manufactures register their approved resellers on the Amazon website. If the seller is not on the list, Amazon could flash a big juicy warning for the buyer. This would be a win-win for Amazon by improving their credibility as a retailer, manufacturers, and buyers. BTW, many manufacturers don’t sell on Amazon because of the exact same reason: counterfeited products that harm the brand.
But Amazon, whose platform’s main goal appears to be making as much money as possible by “democratizing” the retail industry, doesn’t do this. I might not know much about business, but I know that trust is paramount. When corporate greed takes over and their platform tags fake products as “Amazon’s choice”, where is that trust? BTW, I was told by the Amazon’s rep is that I could have a better confidence that a product is genuine if it says that it’s “sold and distributed by Amazon”. Which makes me skeptical because it means that their warehouses must be divided in two areas: one for sold and distributed by Amazon that stores genuine products supposedly procured by Amazon and another for sold by someone else but distributed by Amazon. Somehow, I doubt they do this.
So, Amazon, apply ML to predict the probability of buying a genuine product and show me the confidence score. Perhaps, I’ll buy more…
