Getting your on premises SSAS Tabular model to Azure

Ok today a short one to show how easy it is to take your on premise SSAS cube over to Azure. You often see data migration tools and such for SQL and other platforms but for SSAS it is SUPER easy Let’s go.

First I create a new AS Azure instance:

The important thing is to make sure you select a storage location.

Now while that is creating I go to my on premises model using SSMS and create a backup:

Then in the mean time my Azure AS database is created. I upload the ABF file to the Azure blob that I selected or configured during my Azure AS setup.  I use Azure Storage Explorer for this:

Now after the ABF is available on Azure you can start the restoration, I just connect to Azure AS with SSMS:

As you can see I can now pick the ABF from the blob store directly in SSMS. Select the database you want and press OK.

A few seconds later (based on the size ofcourse ) it is restored:

And done! Now I can connect to it using Power BI:

Now that was quick and easy wasn’t it.