Case Study: Dell achieves up to 12x faster database queries and faster data insights with Microsoft Power BI

Dell Increases Database Query Performance by Up to 12 Times with Upgrade to SQL Server 2017

Dell, which runs roughly 25,000 SQL Server databases supporting more than 1,500 applications, needed faster query performance, quicker provisioning, better analytics, and lower costs. To address those challenges Dell upgraded its internal tools (SQL Dashboard and SQL Grid) to SQL Server 2017 and adopted Power BI Technologies—with support from Microsoft Power BI—to give teams faster access to advanced database and reporting features.

Microsoft Power BI’s solution combined SQL Server 2017 capabilities (In‑Memory OLTP, Columnstore Indexes, adaptive query processing, distributed availability groups) and Power BI Report Server within Dell’s SQL Grid and SQL Dashboard. The changes cut a query job from eight hours to 40 minutes (up to 12× faster), shortened provisioning from months to under an hour, enabled rapid R/Python machine‑learning experiments, eliminated multiple third‑party tools, and delivered measurable cost and time savings for Dell.

Dell

Reinaldo Kibel

Database Strategist, Infrastructure Engineering