Making the Most of Power BI
with SQL Server 2014 and Azure
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Presented by Andy Tegethoff

Perficient is a leading information technology consulting firm serving clients throughout
North America.
We help clients implement business-driven technology solutions that integrate business
processes, improve worker productivity, increase customer loyalty and create a more agile
enterprise to better respond to new business opportunities.
About Perficient

• Founded in 1997
• Public, NASDAQ: PRFT
• 2013 revenue ~$373 million
• Major market locations throughout North America
• Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus,
Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fairfax, Houston, Indianapolis, Los
Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City,
Northern California, Philadelphia, Southern California, St.
Louis, Toronto and Washington, D.C.
• Global delivery centers in China, Europe and India
• >2,100 colleagues
• Dedicated solution practices
• ~85% repeat business rate
• Alliance partnerships with major technology vendors
• Multiple vendor/industry technology and growth awards
Perficient Profile

BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
Business Intelligence
Business Process Management
Customer Experience and CRM
Enterprise Performance Management
Enterprise Resource Planning
Experience Design (XD)
Management Consulting
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
Business Integration/SOA
Cloud Services
Commerce
Content Management
Custom Application Development
Education
Information Management
Mobile Platforms
Platform Integration
Portal & Social
Our Solutions Expertise

Our Microsoft Practice

Andy Tegethoff
Andy is a Microsoft BI architect at Perficient and a senior-level
consultant with more than 14 years of experience exploring,
planning and building cost-effective software and process-oriented
solutions for challenging business problems. A Microsoft Certified
IT Professional (MCITP) for SQL Server BI, his solutions integrate
elements such as data warehousing, dashboards, and broad-
based reporting in order to deliver vital, actionable information at
every level of the enterprise.
Our Speaker

A nationwide Microsoft BI practice offering both
• Strategic Engagements
• Strategy Assessments
• Program Mentoring
• Tactical Engagements
• End-to-End Implementations
• Current State Evaluations
• Proof of Concept Projects
BI Expertise

• Introduction
• Power BI Review
• Accessing Your Data with Power BI
• SQL Server 2014: What’s New?
• Cloud (BI) on the Horizon
• Q & A
Agenda

Introduction
Cloud-Enabled BI with Microsoft
Presentation Tier
Power BI for Office 365
Service Tier/Data Tier
Microsoft Azure/
SQL Server 2014

What is
Power BI?
Power BI is:
A collection of Excel-based
tools and Office 365 SharePoint Online features and services that
enables self-service BI and provides a data collaboration portal
featuring mobile access to analytics.
Power BI for Office 365

What are the
components of
Power BI?
There are two major elements:
Self-Service BI
with Excel
(AKA “The Power Tools”)
Power Query
Power Pivot
Power View
Power Map
Power BI with
Office 365
Power BI Sites
Power BI for Mobile
Data Management
Gateway
Power BI for Office 365

The Power Tools
Power Query
Find and connect data
across a wide variety of
sources – both internal
and external to your
organization
Connect to and consume
Big Data in Excel
• Hadoop (HDFS)
• Azure HD Insight,
PDW

The Power Tools
Power Query
Power Pivot
Find and connect data
across a wide variety of
sources – both internal
and external to your
organization
Connect to and consume
Big Data in Excel
• Hadoop (HDFS)
• Azure HD Insight,
PDW
Host a significant
analytical database
inside Excel in-memory
using the xVelocity
analytics engine, with no
Admin or Configuration –
and share it via
SharePoint
Access data from
standard a variety of
platforms, work with
millions of rows, plus
keep larger file sizes in
Power BI (250MB model
size limit, 10MB file size
limit)

The Power Tools
Power View
Interact with data from
various sources –
including Excel itself, a
Power Pivot model, or
SQL Server Analysis
Services (Tabular model
or OLAP Cube)
Create charts and other
visualizations with
filtering, highlighting,
slicing and sorting
• Multiple Views
• Solid performance
• HTML 5

The Power Tools
Power View
Power Map
Interact with data from
various sources –
including Excel itself, a
Power Pivot model, or
SQL Server Analysis
Services (Tabular model
or OLAP Cube)
Create charts and other
visualizations with
filtering, highlighting,
slicing and sorting
• Multiple Views
• Solid performance
• HTML 5
3D visualization tool for
mapping, exploring and
interacting with
geospatial and time data
Plot data on Bing maps
and visualize with 3D
columns, charts, heat
maps, and regions
Capture screenshot
"scenes" and build
cinematic video "tours"

Power BI SharePoint Online App
Power BI Sites
Analogous to a
PowerPivot Gallery in on-
premise SharePoint, but
BETTER! (Allow larger
files, more advanced
browsing)
Key Features:
• Q & A (Natural
Language query)
• Connectivity to
external data sources

Power BI SharePoint Online App
Power BI Sites
Power BI for Mobile
Analogous to a
PowerPivot Gallery in on-
premise SharePoint, but
BETTER! (Allow larger
files, more advanced
browsing)
Key Features:
• Q & A (Natural
Language query)
• Connectivity to
external data sources
Available in the Windows
Store (currently only for
Windows 8, 8.1 devices)
iOS version due by Q3
Connects to Power BI
site, allows browsing for
Power BI content from
any device

Power BI SharePoint Online App
Administration
Power BI Admin Center
allows IT management of
“gateways” to on-
premises data sources,
and is accessible from
O365 Admin or any
Power BI site

Power BI SharePoint Online App
Administration
Data Management
Gateway
- Client app runs on
machines on-premises
- Connect to cloud
service in Power BI
Power BI Admin Center
allows IT management of
“gateways” to on-
premises data sources,
and is accessible from
O365 Admin or any
Power BI site

Introducing
Data Management
Gateway
Power BI Data Connectivity
A client agent that runs as
Windows Service on data
source computer.
• Free DL -- install to
multiple computers
• Connects to cloud
service which runs in
the Power BI App in
SharePoint Online

Introducing
Data Management
Gateway
Power BI Data Connectivity
A client agent that runs as
Windows Service on data
source computer.
• Free DL -- install to
multiple computers
• Connects to cloud
service which runs in
the Power BI App in
SharePoint Online
Administrator registers and
shares a Data
Management Gateway
client with the cloud
service, and can then
create Data Sources:
• Cloud Refresh of
workbooks
• Shareable OData feeds

Introducing
Data Management
Gateway
Power BI Data Connectivity
A client agent that runs as
Windows Service on data
source computer:
• Free DL -- install to
multiple computers
• Connects to cloud
service which runs in
the Power BI App in
SharePoint Online
Administrator registers and
shares a Data
Management Gateway
client with the cloud
service, and can then
create Data Sources:
• Cloud Refresh of
workbooks
• Shareable OData feeds
Data Source credentials
can be stored securely in
the cloud:
• Business continuity
• Data source migration
purposes
• Requires certificate

So where do you keep your data?
The Power BI Power Tools support most industry-standard data sources
via PowerPivot and/or Power Query:
SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata, IBM DB2, Access, Excel, OData feeds, and more
Data Management Gateway can be used to access SQL Server and Oracle.
On-Premises
• RDBMS Systems
• LOB Systems
• DW Systems
• Small databases
(Excel, Access)
In the Cloud
• Azure SQL Database
• Amazon AWS data
store
• Public data
• Vendors
Power BI Data Connectivity

Power BI Data Connectivity
Access to Data Anywhere
• On-Premises sources via Data Management Gateway
• Cloud sources via Excel Power Query

SQL Server 2014:
What’s New?
Enhancements to the Database Engine:
• In-Memory OLTP (AKA “Hekaton” or Memory-Optimized Tables)
• Improved In-Memory Columnstore Indexes
• Even deeper Azure integration
Enhancements to the Analysis Services and BI:
• Power View for dimensional models
• Chrome browser support for reporting services
SQL Server 2014

SQL Server 2014:
“What’s In It For Me?”
Dramatic query performance boosts (e.g. 30x faster OLTP,
100x faster star schema) with In-Memory DB options
Improved integration with cloud for backup, hot failover, DR,
or even primary data storage (Azure-synced files, Hybrid
Cloud architectures)
SQL Server 2014

SQL Server 2014
Transformational
performance:
- Up to 30x OLTP
performance gains
- Up to 100x faster start
join queries
- Up to 90% disk space
savings
New features:
- In-Memory OLTP
(Memory-Optimized
Tables)
- Updateable In-Memory
columnstore
Low Barriers to Adoption:
- Minimal app rewrite
- Integrated into core
DB engine
- Maximizes existing
hardware
In-Memory Database Technology
• If you know SQL, you can use In-Memory technology
– No new APIs
– Don’t rewrite existing apps!
• Part of Core SQL Server
– Does not restrict other features
– Not a separate license – included in all editions
• Can run in concert with traditional disk-based tables
– Will even tell you which tables should reside in memory!
• Designed for speed
– Locks and latches removed, but durability ensured
– Harness all your CPU/Core capacity!

SQL Server 2014
High-efficiency, high-
value:
- Enhance on-premises
installations with cloud
capabilities
- Pay-per-use scalability
- Simple offsite DR
New features:
- SQL Server Backup to
URL/Azure
- Add Azure Replica
Wizard
- SQL Server Data Files
in Azure
Flexible cloud solution:
- Move entire servers to
the cloud, or just
particular functionality
- Easily expand
resources as you grow
Microsoft Azure Integration
• Hybrid cloud architecture support
– Blending on-premises and cloud technologies
• Scenarios:
– Business continuity
• Cloud backup and restore
• Disaster recovery and/or transparent/Hot failover
– Archive data files to the cloud
– Development or QA environment
• Azure features:
– Azure storage and Azure virtual machines
– Low-cost, virtually limitless storage and compute capacity

Microsoft Azure
Speaking of

Microsoft Azure
Azure Virtual Machines
Only path to fully-functional
SQL Server BI in the cloud
Integrate into existing AD
network/domain
Pre-built VM images provided
by Microsoft – including a
SQL 2014 Data Warehousing
server
Speaking of

Microsoft Azure
Azure Virtual Machines
Only path to fully-functional
SQL Server BI in the cloud
Integrate into existing AD
network/domain
Pre-built VM images provided
by Microsoft – including a SQL
2014 Data Warehousing server
Big Data with HDInsight
Wraps an Apache Hadoop
implementation
Uses Azure Tables for storage
Excellent option for integrating
Big Data into existing
applications, BI solutions,
reporting environments
Speaking of

Cloud BI
BI in the Cloud with Azure
and SQL Server 2014:
What do I need?
• Azure Virtual Machine
– With Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 Data
Warehousing edition licenses
• Azure HDInsight cluster and Azure Storage
– Supports Hadoop Big Data

Cloud BI
… and for
Power BI in the Cloud
with Office365:
• Office 365 SharePoint Online
– with Power BI for Office 365 app Office 365 Excel
* Not an “officially” Microsoft-supported configuration

Cloud BI
SQL Server Cloud BI Advice
• Use an A7 VM for SQL Server 2014
• Use a point-to-site or a site-to-site VPN connection for
efficient data transfer
• Use page compression for your data
• Use one file per filegroup to prevent multilevel striping
(negatively affects throughput)
• Set up the Power BI data source from the Azure VM
itself

Questions?

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