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Can BI Software Handle Data Capacity?

Business intelligence tools need to be capable of handling large datasets speedily to provide efficient data management and instant handling response. Poor data management slows down the system and delays analysis and reporting.

It is important to ensure that your BI software can handle your data without any issues. Luckily, Microsoft Power BI has recently upgraded its capacity settings to enable better performance while manipulating data for intelligent insights.

New data capacity improvements include the adjusting of dataset sizes, data query memory limit and data query timeout. These improvements allow enterprises to process large sets of data faster and enlarge the capacity available to reduce memory usage and slow response.

Here are some scenarios where data capacity becomes critical for BI usage:

  • When large datasets take up memory and slow system functionality, data administrators would often migrate the data in question to a different capacity. This is a time-consuming process that requires first the identification of the datasets that are too large for the existing resources. Configuring the dataset size in the improved range of up to 10GB avoids migrations and prevents publishing large, slow datasets.
  • Not all data queries or calculations are the same. Some intermediary queries can use substantial memory and affect the overall capacity, causing slow response and memory errors. The query memory setting limits the memory that can be used by temporary results during a query. Data admins can identify easier data queries causing memory issues and limit their exposure to improve overall performance.
  • Not all reports are queried and compiled at the same time. Sometimes, reports can be delayed due to other slow and expansive queries, which requires moving the workload to a different capacity. Power BI’s default timeout for all queries is 60 minutes, but in reality, it is much faster (typically 3 minutes) based on the capacity and datasets available. Controlling query timeout allows users to compile reports and manage queries without affecting other workloads.

Note: The data capacity settings are available in the premium edition of Power BI and can be accessed through the Capacity settings page in the Admin Portal or by expanding the ‘Workload’ section under the ‘Management’ tab. Data administrators can apply changes from the predefined values based on company requirements.

Need help to understand, organise, and filter your business data to critical insights? Go from data to insights in minutes with STRATEGIX and Power BI.

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Contact STRATEGIX today at 087 802 0179 or email us at info@strategix.co.za for more information.