CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sqlsql-serverssasdaxssas-tabular
Atul Bansal
Atul Bansal

Reputation: 151

SSAS tabular model VS multidimentional model

I am new to SSAS tabular model and DAX. We are doing a POC to check which model we should use for our system. There are currently 2 models that we are evaluating: the SSAS Tabular Model and the Multidimensional Model.

My understanding is that the SSAS Tabular Model has some size limitations, i.e. it is good for data <= 1TB as on a single server but it is limited in terms of memory usage. Is this true?

Currently our requirements call for less than 1TB of data, but that may change in the future.

I find the SSAS Tabular Model attractive due to ease of use and faster development cycles, but I would like to get some input from the community on whether this is the right choice.

Thank you, Atul.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 866

Answers (2)

SouravA
SouravA

Reputation: 5243

If you have enough money to buy requisite hardware, go for Tabular model as it is almost always faster(exceptions aside). It has the new faster Vertipaq engine which does a better job at compressing data and retrieving results. But never trust just the size of data to decide the model. There could be cases where the calculations are so complex that it overwhelms the RAM. Finally there are good bit of features which are still unavailable on tabular model, so understand those very well before making the decisions. That said, there are a lot of factors in favor of multi dimensional model too and for many practical cases it doesn't make much sense to ditch it in favor of tabular. But adopting Tabular modelling surely is looking towards the future. Hope that helps. All the best.

Upvotes: 3

Mindaugas Grigas
Mindaugas Grigas

Reputation: 179

Today multidimensional models perform better in scalability, security and stability and they have many advanced features that are not available in tabular.

For example implementing many-to-many relationships is easier in multidimensional (only workarrounds available in tabular mode).

Besides technicalities, tabular also requires more expensive SQL Server license.

These 3 resources give quite a comprehensive analysis of the situation: http://richardlees.blogspot.ca/2012/05/sql-server-2012-tabular-versus.html

https://sqlserverbiblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/ssas-tabular-models-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-the-beautiful/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/cansql/archive/2015/01/15/mvp-series-promoting-an-excel-tabular-model-to-ssas.aspx

Upvotes: 1

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