Is AAS receiving ongoing investment, or is it being deprecated?

Question

Does anyone know if there are plans to continue developing AAS (PaaS in azure)?

There are clues that indicate that it is being abandoned, just as multidimensional was. The blog hasn't been touched in ages, the consultants are telling us to avoid it in favor of "power bi premium", and there are critical features that are missing with little hope on the horizon.

One critical feature we desparately need is VNET support. It doesn't make sense for our AAS cubes to be exposed to the public internet, nor for the underlying data sources to be exposed. This is something that has been requested long ago (see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/556165-azure-analysis-services/suggestions/16944562-present-azure-analysis-services-on-a-vnet ). But for whatever reason Microsoft is not working on it and has only given us a weird work-around that involves building a "gateway" on our own vm infrastructure in azure.

If Microsoft is slowly abandoning AAS then there isn't much hope for VNET support. It seems like Microsoft could do a better job of communicating the future direction of AAS. It still shows up on architecture diagrams and such, but when when we start diving into the product we find that it is not getting the ongoing maintenance that it needs.

Any information would be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

Here is another blog from Christian Wade. If you read between the lines, they are basically saying AAS is deprecated.

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-as-a-superset-of-azure-analysis-services/

In particular, you can read the end that starts "To be clear and transparent..." and shows AAS getting swallowed by Power BI.

The next thing that Microsoft needs to do, to be clear and transparent, is to close all the requests and ideas for improvements to AAS (see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/556165-azure-analysis-services/suggestions/16944562-present-azure-analysis-services-on-a-vnet ) . Those aren't happening.

Answer 2

I have it on very good authority that all major investments, including VNET support, will only be made in Power BI. Microsoft is committed to supporting all AAS functionality in Power BI Premium and they are making good progress here.

Once Power BI Premium is a superset of AAS, it is not likely that they will continue to preserve and maintain both of them forever.

Check out this little animation at 5:30. It couldn’t me more clear than this!
https://youtu.be/Gjnu1yVCby4?t=329

Here is another blog post that seems to be a good explanation of the strategy:
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-premium-and-azure-analysis-services/