New Tabular Schema in SQL Server 2016
Those of you who had to generate programmatically Tabular models or make changes to the schema would agree that it was more complicated that it should have been. That’s because Tabular borrowed the schema from Multidimensional so objects had to be defined in different places and in the SSAS MD terminology (dimensions, DSVs, etc). SQL Server 2016 CTP3 brings a new and much more simplified Json-based schema for describing SSAS Tabular models. To see it, you need to configure your workspace database in SQL Server 2016 (1200) compatibility mode. SSMS doesn’t yet support the new schema but you can take a look at Model.bim once you create your project. When you open the source of the Model.bim file you’ll see something completely different than the XML schema you were used to:
{
“name”: “SemanticModel”,
“id”: “SemanticModel”,
“compatibilityLevel”: 1200,
“readWriteMode”: “readWrite”,
“model”: {
“culture”: “en-US”,
“dataSources”: [
{
“name”: “DW”,
“connectionString”: “Provider=SQLNCLI11;Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=AdventureworksDW2016CTP3;Integrated Security=SSPI;Persist Security Info=false”,
“impersonationMode”: “impersonateServiceAccount”,
“annotations”: [
{
“name”: “ConnectionEditUISource”,
“value”: “SqlServer”
},
{
“name”: “PasswordRemoved”
}
]
}
],
“tables”: …
So faster Tabular schema operations in SQL 2016 and much easier model auto-generation. Now all we need is a programmatic way to work with the new schema and this should probably come soon.
