SQL Analysis Services

Design Principles

Build models that are simple, maintainable, and aligned with business needs.

Key guidelines:

• Use a star schema whenever possible.
• Separate dimensions from measures.
• Keep calculated columns to a minimum; prefer measures.
• Document naming conventions consistently.

CALCULATE(
    SUM(Sales[Amount]),
    FILTER(
        ALL(Dates),
        Dates[Year] = MAX(Dates[Year])
    )
)

Performance Tuning

Optimize query processing and storage.

• Enable VertiPaq compression.
• Use appropriate hierarchy granularity.
• Process partitions incrementally.
• Monitor QueryMemoryUsage and CacheHits.

CREATE PARTITION [P2023] AS 
    RANGE START (CAST('2023-01-01' AS DATE))
    END (CAST('2024-01-01' AS DATE));

Security

Implement row‑level security (RLS) to restrict data access.

CREATE ROLE [NorthRegion] AS 
    FILTER (SELECT * FROM Sales WHERE Region = N'North');

Deployment Strategies

Automate deployments with Azure DevOps or PowerShell.

Deploy-TabularModel -Server "as-server" -Database "ModelDB" -Path ".\model.bim"

Monitoring & Maintenance

Regularly review the following metrics:

• Query duration
• Cache hit ratio
• Processing time per partition
• Disk usage by compression level

Set up alerts in Azure Monitor for thresholds.