In order to expand our support for the Microsoft ecosystem of data and analytics tools, we focused on all aspects of integrations: from using Azure for hosting Cube Cloud deployments to Entra ID for identity management, Fabric for data warehousing upstream of Cube, and Power BI for data consumption by end users.

Regardless of how deep you're invested in the Microsoft ecosystem and how many Azure services you use, Cube Cloud would blend right in to centralize the management and performance of your data analytics.

Cube Cloud and Microsoft Ecosystem

Among other integrations, Fabric and Power BI are the most impactful ones, enabling data engineers, data analysts, and business users to work with data in a way that is native to the Microsoft ecosystem of tools.

With dozens of existing integrations with data sources and data exploration applications, Cube arguably provides the best support for tools both upstream and downstream of its semantic layer. Now, if your data is processed in SQL Server or Synapse and/or if your users spend hours in Power BI or other applications, Cube will provide unified metrics definitions and access control for them.

Most importantly, Power BI integration is enabled by Semantic Layer Sync, which streamlines business intelligence tool connectivity beyond what is possible with SQL, REST, and GraphQL APIs that Cube provides. With Semantic Layer Sync, you can instantly take a PBIT file from Cube Cloud, import it in Power BI, and start building reports; no other configuration requred.

See how Semantic Layer Sync with Power BI works on this video:

As you can see, Cube processes DirectQuery requests from Power BI and seamlessly translates them into SQL queries against upstream data sources, e.g., Microsoft Fabric, SQL Server or any other supported data source, accounting for the data model definitions and access control rules in place:

SELECT
  TOP 1002 "pick_up_geography".City "trips__pick_up_city",
  ROUND(
    sum("trip".TipAmount) / NULLIF(sum("trip".TotalAmount), 0) * 100,
    1
  ) "trips__tip_percent"
FROM
  dbo.Trip AS "trip"
  LEFT JOIN dbo.Geography AS "pick_up_geography"
    ON "trip".PickupGeographyID = "pick_up_geography".GeographyID
WHERE
  ("pick_up_geography".Country = 'United States')
GROUP BY
  "pick_up_geography".City
HAVING
  (
    ROUND(
      sum("trip".TipAmount) / NULLIF(sum("trip".TotalAmount), 0) * 100,
      1
    ) IS NOT NULL
  )
ORDER BY
  2 DESC,
  1 ASC

Semantic Layer Sync with Power BI is available in Cube Cloud on Enterprise tier. Please get in touch if you'd like to see how it works for your use case.

You can also check the documentation to learn more about accessing and configuring this feature. Join our Slack community to share your thoughts and opinions about this update.