Migrate from Azure Analysis Services to Power BI: Migration scenarios

This article compares six hypothetical scenarios for migrating from Azure Analysis Services (AAS) to Power BI. These scenarios can help you determine the right type and number of licenses for your business requirements and circumstances.

When you compare Fabric and Power BI to AAS costs, consider factors beyond price per core. Fabric and Power BI provide reduced cost of ownership and business value, and offer many features that are only available to Power BI semantic models.

Also, assuming you already use Power BI in your organization, calculate costs based on the existing profile that combines AAS and Fabric and Power BI. Compare the existing profile with the target profile on Power BI. To determine the target profile, consider the following points:

• Region requirements.
• The largest AAS data model size in each region.
• The number of users in each region.
• The number of users required to develop and manage content.
• CPU consumption across AAS and Fabric capacities.

Migration scenario 1

In the first migration scenario, the customer uses Power BI for the frontend and AAS for the backend. There are 20 developers who are each responsible for the development and test environments, and for deployment to production.

Here are their current AAS licenses:

Here are their current Power BI licenses:

After migration to Power BI:

• The three existing production AAS models can be consolidated to run in a F256 (or a P3, if you still have one) capacity.
• The 20 developers will need Premium Per User (PPU) licenses to access test models above 1 GB in size.

Here are the proposed Fabric/Power BI licenses:

Migration scenario 2

In this migration scenario, the customer uses Power BI for the frontend and AAS for the backend. The production environments run in different regions. Twenty developers are each responsible for the development and test environments, and for deployment to production.

Here are their current AAS licenses:

Here are their current Power BI licenses:

When you migrate to Power BI:

• The customer needs a Fabric (or equivalent Premium) capacity in each of the three regions because the three existing production AAS models run in different regions. Each capacity size is based on the largest model.
• The 20 developers will need PPU licenses to access test models above 1 GB in size.

Here are the proposed Fabric/Power BI licenses:

Migration scenario 3

In this migration scenario, the customer has Power BI Pro licenses for all users available with their Office 365 E5 subscription, and they use AAS for the backend. There are 15 developers who are each responsible for the development and test environments, and for deployment to production.

Here are their current AAS licenses:

Here are their current Power BI licenses:

When you migrate to Power BI:

• The two existing production AAS models can be consolidated to run in a F128 (or a P2, if you still have one) capacity.
• The 15 developers will need PPU licenses to access test models above 1 GB in size. (An add-on is available to step up from Pro to PPU.)

Here are the proposed Power BI licenses:

Migration scenario 4

In this migration scenario, the customer has Power BI Pro licenses for all users, and they use AAS for the backend. There are five developers who are each responsible for the development and test environments, and for deployment to production.

Here are their current AAS licenses:

Here are their current Power BI licenses:

After migration to Power BI:

• The two existing production AAS models can run in PPU workspaces.
• All end users and developers will need PPU licenses.

Here are the proposed Power BI licenses:

Migration scenario 5

In this migration scenario, the customer uses Power BI for the frontend and AAS for the backend. There are 25 developers who are each responsible for the development and test environments, and for deployment to production.

Here are their current AAS licenses:

Here are their current Fabric/Power BI licenses:

After migration to Power BI:

• You can consolidate the three existing production AAS models to run in a F1024 (or a Premium P5) capacity.
• The 20 developers will need PPU licenses to access test models above 1 GB in size.

Here are the proposed Fabric/Power BI licenses:

Migration scenario 6

In this migration scenario, an ISV company has 400 customers. Each customer has its own SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) multidimensional model (also known as a cube). The analysis below compares Azure Analysis Services with the Power BI Embedded alternative.

• The 400 tenants are mainly accessed by 50 analysts from the ISV company as well as two users (on average) from each customer.
• The total size of the models is about 100 GB.

Here are their estimated AAS licenses:

Here are their current Power BI licenses:

After migration to Power BI:

• The A4/F64 SKU supports future model size growth (EM3/A3 SKU can also work).
• The 50 analysts will need PPU licenses to access test models above 1 GB in size.
• The total size of the 400 models isn't relevant for pricing; only the largest model size is important.

Here are their proposed Power BI licenses:

Migration benefits

You get many benefits when you migrate from AAS to Power BI.

• You can consolidate to a single platform that reduces cost duplication of paying for both AAS and Fabric/Power BI.
• By using Fabric capacities (or existing Premium capacities) for their entire BI stack, you can unlock increased performance and features. You only need Pro licenses for developers and admins, but not for end users.
• You can use Fabric/Power BI scalability to reduce your capacity requirements, since memory is limited per semantic model and isn't compared to total over the server as it is in AAS. For more information, see Memory allocation.
• For development and test environments, you can take advantage of PPU licensing instead of having Fabric (or Premium) capacities. PPU licenses provide users access to premium features like the XMLA endpoint, deployment pipelines, and dataflow features. Furthermore, you can work with models above 1 GB in size.

Related content

For more information about this article, check out the following resources:

• Migrate from Azure Analysis Services to Power BI
• What is Power BI Premium?
• Power BI pricing
• Azure Analysis Services pricing
• Questions? Try asking the Fabric Community
• Suggestions? Contribute ideas to improve Fabric

Power BI partners are available to help your organization succeed with the migration process. To find a Power BI partner, visit the Microsoft Power BI partners portal.