Azure Analysis Services Incremental Loading Approach

Question

What we are using:

• Azure Synapse
• Azure Analysis Services
• Azure Logic Apps
• Azure Data Factory

What we want:

• Daily incremental extraction from an Azure Synapse external table to an Azure Analysis Services database. This is insert only, no updates or deletes.
• Check source row counts for the data coming from Azure Synapse external table
• Insert data into Azure Analysis Services
• Verify the rows from the source were inserted into the destination (AAS)
• Log when this process occurred
• If possible, send an alert if something went wrong

We are currently using Azure Logic Apps to trigger processing the AAS database. However, it only does the processing - no verifying rows or logging when the processing occurred. I guess we could use ADF, but I heard it doesn't have a built-in way to process AAS.

So what would be the best approach to this? Perhaps a combination of ADF and Azure Logic Apps? Or is there a way of just using one or the other?

Answer 1

Hi @James H. Robinson ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Platform. Thanks for posting the query.

There is no current in-built component in Azure Data Factory to process Azure Analysis services and I would recommend you to upvote this idea in the feedback forum. All the feedback you share, is closely monitored by the Data Factory Product team and implemented in future releases.

Multiple approaches to refresh Azure Analysis databases are shared in MS Documentation using REST API, Logic Apps and Azure Automation. Using REST API and multiple components in Azure data factory primarily leveraging "Web Activity" there is a good article and corresponding code that are close references to your requirement.

Best approach to implement the above requirement depends on the flexibility of the team in designing native components or to use Logic Apps/Azure Automation.

Hope this helps! Please let us know for further details and we will be glad to assist.