As you work in Power BI, you will find that you need a way for your cloud-based data to communicate with your on-premises data. You want your data that is on the server to remain safe and secure on the server, but you and others need to access it in order to generate reports. The solution is a gateway. Let’s go through the specifics.
A Power BI Gateway serves as a pathway between your on-premises data and your cloud-based apps. A gateway is secure and encrypted, so you know your data is safe as it travels. It requires correct authentication in order to access the data, so it will only open for registered users.
A gateway does not actually transfer data, which means it stays on your server even as clients access it. It simply provides a connection point to the cloud. A gateway allows users to access the data for the purposes of making reports or dashboards.
The gateway also allows you to refresh your reports with current data regularly. It’s free to install and relatively simple to configure.
There are two gateways options available for Power BI. Personal Mode is pretty self-explanatory: it’s for a single user. When in personal mode, your gateway will connect Power BI cloud and on-premises data for an individual data analyst. If you only need one person to access the data, Personal Mode may work for you.
You can run it as an app even if you aren’t an administrator, which is not true of Standard mode (which we’ll get into next). Personal mode allows you to import data and schedule a refresh, but it does not connect to other apps that you may be using. For this reason, Microsoft and many users recommend you use Standard Mode instead.
Standard/Recommended Mode is the default choice when you download Gateway. It allows multiple users to access data, and offers more functionality. In standard mode, you can connect to not only Power BI, but also Power Apps, Azure Logic Apps, Power Automate, Azure Analysis Services, and Dataflo.
You’ll have the same import and refresh capabilities as in Personal Mode, but you can also use DirectQuery. Within this mode, administrators have oversight capabilities and can access all data from all users.
You’ll want to ensure you are physically connected to the internet because many analysts have noticed lagging from their gateway when using a wireless connection.
It can be tricky to convert from personal mode to standard mode on a device, so think carefully about which one you will need for the long term. Standard mode comes highly recommended and can generally suit your needs the best.
To install:
Once your gateway is installed and registered, you are ready to put it to use. You’ll need to connect the data sources you want to the gateway.
To add a data source to your gateway, you’ll first need to get the file path for an on-premises file.
Once you have the file path copied, open Power Bi Service online and go to Settings.
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