Optimizing SQL Server and PostgreSQL for Power BI

Eugene Meidinger

When it comes to Power BI refresh speed and DirectQuery speeds, these depend on a well-tuned backend. This can be especially difficult, because often you have no control over the SQL that Power BI generates. In this session we will cover both SQL Server and PostgreSQL as backends for Power BI.

Specifically, we will cover how to review execution plans, add indexes, and trace your queries. We’ll cover how to make sure Power Query is pushing the work back to the database server via query folding. We’ll also cover the unique challenges of near real-time reporting with DirectQuery.

By the end of this session, you’ll have a set of steps to performance-tune your backend for Power BI, and a plan to improve performance.