Microsoft, Google back Apache Ossie to make enterprise data and AI platforms more interoperable
Microsoft and Google back Apache Ossie: semantic models become portable across Snowflake, Databricks, Tableau, Power BI. The catch: vendor lock-in shifts, not disappears.
Why it matters
Apache Ossie, now backed by 60+ vendors including Microsoft and Google, offers a hub-and-spoke specification for moving semantic models between analytics and AI platforms without point-to-point converters. For enterprises, this reduces engineering overhead when switching BI or data tools — but portability doesn't guarantee equivalent behavior, and governance gaps remain unfilled.
The key facts
9 to knowApache Ossie uses JSON/YAML to represent datasets, fields, relationships, metrics, AI context across platforms
60+ companies backing the project, including Databricks, Informatica, Mistral AI, Nvidia, Oracle, Salesforce, Snowflake
Microsoft developing two-way converter between Power BI semantic models and Ossie; pushing for DAX language support
Google joining Apache Ossie; BigQuery/GoogleSQL already listed as supported dialect
Specification version 0.2 is explicitly labeled development draft; project still in Apache Incubator, not full ASF project
Governance gaps: row-level security, access policies, certification status not yet defined as first-class elements
Portability does not guarantee equivalent behavior; Power BI time-intelligence functions, calculation groups, DAX context transitions do not map cleanly to ANSI SQL
Enterprise validation still required before production deployment, especially for complex models
Analysts warn vendor lock-in will shift to execution engines and proprietary behavior that Ossie cannot capture
Go to the source
CIOcio.com
Publisher excerpt: Microsoft and Google are joining a project to create an open specification for exchanging semantic models across data, analytics, and AI platforms. The project already has the backing of over 60 companies including Databricks, Informatica, Mistral AI, Nvidia, Oracle, Salesforce, and Snowflake.…