The second edition of the only book on Power BI performance, was published in August 2024. It contains lots of info from the first edition, plus changes and new content based in Power BI, Fabric, and external tools to help.

Amazon.com: Microsoft Power BI Performance Best Practices: Learn practical techniques for building high-speed Power BI solutions: 9781835082256: Thomas LeBlanc, Bhavik Merchant: Books


The first section is about setting some metrics or goals. It talks about the end user’s tolerance for the speed of rendering. The definition of good performance is used to look at performance goals. There is a section on realistic goals.

Consideration is explained with looking at the different areas where performance is an issue. Most report developers never consider the model or architecture because that is not what they work on. The model builder never thinks about what the report creator is doing. So all these items are discussed and then referenced in proceeding chapters to help pinpoint an area.

The 2nd chapter in this section (and book) looks at the different model modes like Import versus DirectQuery. The 3rd chapter focuses on the free tools available in Power BI and externally to help with the analysis.