Unfortunately, Microsoft Dataverse isn’t a data storage consideration for many Power Platform makers because their organizations are already using other data sources like SQL Server, Salesforce, SharePoint Online (SPO), etc. These other data sources are well-supported, but Dataverse is the foundation of the Power Platform, so there is native integration for it in Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Pages.
Still, even with Dataverse‘s native support of the Power Platform, organizational data already resides in other systems. Fortunately, Dataverse is more than just a data source. It is a complete data solution and part of that solution is something called virtual tables. Virtual tables allow makers to make their externally hosted data available in Dataverse without actually importing the data into “physical” Dataverse tables. The benefit, that data can remain in its external system as the single source of truth, but still be accessible to apps, flows, reports, bots, and pages relying on Dataverse:
Taking advantage of virtual tables, data doesn’t need to be duplicated from the source systems, threatening data integrity. It requires effort to keep duplicated data fresh, accurate, and consistent across systems. Additionally, duplicated data requires extra storage and that extra storage costs money, which quickly adds up. Not duplicating data across systems should make the developers, data engineers, and DBAs happy because there isn’t a custom solution to maintain, keeping all of that data synced, resulting in unnecessary technical debt.
Conclusion:
Virtual tables aren’t perfect, but I believe that the pros out-weight the cons. They are a great way to present externally hosted data from supported systems and make that data accessible to Power Platform solutions leveraging Microsoft Dataverse.
“If we are truly a great nation, the truth cannot destroy us.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones
#BlackLivesMatter
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