Building efficient models

We will begin with some theoretical concepts on how to model data for efficient storage, which leads to faster queries. These design techniques have been around the data warehouse world since the 1990s. The simplicity of dimensional modeling has always been centered around efficient structures for analytical reports. The Analysis Services engine was designed for star schemas in both the multidimensional cubes as well as tabular semantic models.

Let’s review together the basics of dimensional modeling.

The Kimball dimensional model theory

Data modeling can be thought of as how to group and connect attributes in a set of data. There are competing schools of thought as to what style of data modeling is the best and they are not always mutually exclusive. Learning about dimensional modeling is the best fit for Power BI semantic models, so we will concentrate on this method.

We will be looking at dimensional modeling, a very popular technique...