As data volumes continue to increase the organizations are under constant pressure to deliver Business Intelligence (BI) faster with more flexibility. That requires faster data warehouse performance to support rapid business analytics as well as a shorter time to respond to the changing business environment. In the past few years, inmemory column oriented databases made it possible to store very large volumes of data in the main memory providing high-speed processing and increased flexibility

more »

... providing ad hoc analytics. This paper presents the technological advances of the SQL Server Tabular Model that utilizes in-memory columnar storage for its Analysis Services. It also examines if the Tabular Model provides the so-called agile BI. For such an examination we establish the criteria for agile BI. We conclude that the Tabular Model exhibits many characteristics of an agile BI while we understand that it is an evolving technology and therefore we regard it as a step towards agile BI.