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Hi,
I found excellent documentation to explain “how to” used each of Microsoft products but very little about “where and when” to use it. I’m sometimes confused about where MS places SQL Server, SSIS, Dataverse, Power BI, etc.
So I'm looking for resources that explain where Dataverse (and everything other MS Products) fits in a full BI architecture? Like a bible that would tell us what is Microsoft vision for each of its product, where to they fit? Hopefully with usecases and examples!
Here’s the story of the pitfall I fell into... and would like to avoid in the future :
Due to limited resources in my organization we decided not to use SQL Server nor SSIS. So I jumped right into Dataverse and used Dataflows as ETL. I ran into many issues with referential integrity, incremental updates and orchestration. So much that I ended up not putting any relationships between tables; hence using Dataverse as a staging area. Then I used Power BI to build a true relational data model including data integrity and all. It works very well for analytics but now I’m screwed because I cannot leverage our data models to build mobile Apps. In Power Apps I only have access to the non-relational and poor quality staging data. Despite all the time I spent at the beginning of the project to analyse the features of the different products I didn't think about mobile Apps because it wasn't in our vision at the time. It would've been great if I understood Microsoft vision.
Thanks
--mo
Its not a straight forward thing to answer - and it is relatively young (but at the same time not).
Its not a question of if SQL Server or Dataverse is better etc - each could be better given a particular scenario, and this is probably what is not clear. The following link may provide a little more clarity
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/data-platform/why-dataverse-overview
Early in the peace, there were the concepts of a Common Data Model and Common Data Service, and this is now DataVerse. A lot of what you see in DataVerse is taken from Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement/CRM (Solution Files, Model Driven Apps) but there is additional functionality/tools such as Canvas Apps, DataFlow etc that were not part of the CRM world. One of the early concepts was to have a DataModel/Service where the data that was generally silo'd in one application was accessible to other applications without needing complex ETL data integration etc. (this is not all there yet, but they are slowly getting it in) - it has then extended to other products such as Teams, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice (Forms Pro) etc.
There's also a whole world of licencing and this may also influence if DataVerse is for your scenario as well.
Hi @molegris,
I can appreciate the challenge you're facing. This gets into the architecture territory, and as with any solution it's not a black/white answer. I can recommend a couple of learning paths/modules to look into if you're into a bit of "light reading".
Microsoft Learn: Solution Architect: Design Power Platform solutions
I think the following modules under this learning path would be a useful read for you:
Hopefully you find it helpful.
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Hi @ChrisPiasecki ,
Thanks for your quick and detailed answer. It helps for this specific issue!
But I guess I was hoping to find a broader resource where Microsoft would offer guidance in using their products. Their offer is so large now then it gets confusing at times.
Let say your boss asks you to create a dashboard with 3 charts. You can do it with Excel, Excel online, SQL Server Reporting Services, Power BI, Dataverse has charts and dashboard too, and I guess you can even get it done with Visio if you tweek and twist it enough. Well, lol, I know it's a week example but I hope you get the idea.
My point is that there is a real risk of loosing a lot of time and money trying to do something with a product that was not design for it; while there was another MS product perfectly adapted to fullfill your need. And I'm very surprised that I cannot find any online documentation from Microsoft on that matter. Wether it's a catalog of usecases or a decision tree; even a chatbot.
I'm sorry ... I don't want to waste anybody's time with a question that is more of a comment or an oppinion. Maybe this is not the right place but I don't know any other way to reach "them" to share my experience.... and hope they'll listen. 🙂
--mo
Hi @molegris,
Dataverse is very much transactional like SQL Server (SQL Server is the underlying data source for the relational data). With that in mind, it is good for handling transactional/operational business data, and master data. Operational reporting using SSRS or Power BI direct query is well suited with Dataverse. Dataflows works fine as an ETL tool but does have some limitations with scale or more complex transformations. ETL tools such as SSIS, Azure Data Factory, or others work better in scenarios where Dataflows falls short.
When it comes to heavy analytical workloads, gaining insights, or high-volume telemetry data (think IoT), this is where other stores such as Azure Data Lake are more suitable. Export to Data lake supports incremental load from Dataverse to ADL. You also have the Export Data Service which you can as well incrementally load data into an Azure SQL instance to perform your analytical workloads again. Power BI can be hooked up to any of these data sources.
More information: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/data-platform/import-export-data
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