Power BI Gateway: How to share local data in Power BI reports

What is Power BI Gateway and what is it for

The Power BI Gateway, developed by Microsoft, is an important solution that facilitates connection between local data sources and the Power BI cloud platform. This tool, available free of charge, plays a fundamental role in allowing users to easily import and share locally stored information through renowned Power BI reports, while ensuring high security standards.

The gateway acts as a bridge between Microsoft cloud services and a company's on-premise infrastructure, which includes software and physical resources. It's important to note that the Power BI Gateway isn't limited solely to Power BI; it's also used to improve the functionality of other cloud services such as Power Apps, Power Automate, Azure Analysis Services, and Azure Logic Apps.

The Power BI Gateway allows you to enrich the functionality of a wide range of cloud services, making it possible to integrate seamlessly between local data resources and Microsoft cloud platforms. This means that not only Power BI, but also other applications such as Power Apps and Power Automate, can benefit from the gateway's abilities to connect and interact with local data sources.

However, it is important to emphasize that the association of the Power BI Gateway with Power BI represents one of the most frequent and significant cases. Thanks to the Gateway, users can obtain and share more detailed reports and dashboards, thus responding to the growing need to keep part or all of the data within the company's local resources.

In addition, the Power BI Gateway offers the flexibility to configure how this information is transmitted, based on two different versions of the gateway integrated into Power BI:

1. Personal version of Power BI Gateway: This version is dedicated to individual users, allowing them to use the gateway within Power BI to keep the imported data updated through queries that go directly from the platform to the user's personal device.
   ‍
2. Standard version of Power BI Gateway: In contrast, the standard version is designed to support multiple users and allows connection to different on-premise data sources. In addition, it offers the possibility of installing the gateway on different machines, thus creating a local cluster and offering redundancy. This approach is particularly suitable for complex scenarios, where reliability and service availability are of vital importance.

To conclude this overview, we will explore two additional advantages and as many limitations that characterize the Power BI Gateway.

Advantages:

1. Data Update Schedule: The Power BI Gateway supports scheduling data updates on an hourly, daily and weekly basis, even allowing for real-time updates through Direct Query mode. This makes it possible to keep one of the most important features of the platform intact, ensuring that the data is always updated and ready for analysis.
   ‍
2. Centralized Control of Data Connections: A key feature of the Power BI Gateway is the ability to control all data connections within the corporate network from a single location. This offers a greater level of management and control over security and access to data, making it easier to maintain and monitor connections.

Restrictions:

1. Internet Connection Required: One of the main limitations of the Power BI Gateway is the need for an Internet connection to transmit local data to the Power BI cloud. While this connectivity is often available in modern business infrastructures, it's still an important factor to consider when planning your gateway deployment.
   ‍
2. Limited number of Refreshes: Another limitation of the Power BI Gateway is the limited number of available refreshes, which depends both on the Power BI license subscribed and on the type of connected data source. This can be a challenge for companies that manage large volumes of data or that require frequent updates for their analyses.

How to install Power BI Gateway

You can download the gateway directly from the Microsoft website, in dedicated section. Once you have run the file and choose the version of the component to install (Personal or Standard), you can log in to Power BI Gateway with your Microsoft credentials.

How to connect Power BI Gateway to enterprise on-prem sources

The process of connecting the Power BI Gateway to on-premise business resources may vary depending on the type of data source used. However, you can follow a series of general steps to set up the link properly. Here's a step-by-step guide:

1. Sign in to the Power BI Service through your account.
2. Select the 'Manage Gateway' option from the navigation menu.
3. Enter the name of the gateway that was previously installed and configured. Make sure that you use the correct name assigned to the gateway during installation.
4. Click 'Add Data Source' to start the connection process.
5. Select the type of data source that you want the gateway to connect to. This could be a SQL Server database, an instance of Analysis Services, a text file, an Excel file, and so on.
6. Configure the data source based on the specifics of your business environment. This could include setting login credentials, selecting which tables or views to retrieve data from, and other configuration options.
7. Once the configuration is complete, save the settings and the gateway will be able to automatically retrieve information from the specified data source whenever reports are created or updated in Power BI.

By following these steps, you can effectively connect the Power BI Gateway to on-premise business resources, allowing secure and reliable access to data for creating reports and dashboards in Power BI.