Azure service hosting tabular OLAP models for large numbers of Power BI and Excel users; semantic models in Power BI Premium are its modern counterpart.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Azure Analysis Services in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- OLAP
Online analytical processing, models built for aggregating data and slicing it in different ways; Azure Analysis Services is one example.
- Power BI
Microsoft's analytics and reporting service. It reaches data held on-premises through the on-premises data gateway.
- Premium
Hosting plan for Azure Functions that keeps instances pre-warmed to avoid cold starts and supports VNet integration. Executions time out after 30 minutes by default, which host.json can extend.
Related terms
- AI splits
A decomposition tree mode, shown by a light-bulb icon, in which Power BI itself picks the field to expand next, looking for high or low values in absolute or relative terms. It is unavailable in Power BI Report Server, Azure Analysis Services and publish-to-web reports.
- Analysis Services
VertiPaq, Microsoft's in-memory analytics engine, sits underneath every Power BI semantic model and is likewise available as Azure Analysis Services or SQL Server Analysis Services. Tools connect to it over XMLA, using its client libraries.
- Live connection
Power BI reports can skip having a local model and instead connect straight to one already published in the Power BI service, Azure Analysis Services or SQL Server Analysis Services. Authors may still write report-level measures; editing the underlying model is possible only after converting it via Make changes to this model.