Forum Discussion
Run Data Gateway from container
Currently my company has a data gateway installed on a physical server on-prem. This server is being decommissioned and I need to run the datagateway from Azure where we have the VPNs configured and access to the on-prem servers. I know I could spin a VM and install the gateway there but this isn't cost-effective as that VM would need to be up and running 24x7 only to serve the gateway. I think it's best to prepare a container image with the gateway (or an empty windows image that installs and configures the gateway on load) but I don't have a clue where to start.
How can I spin a container to serve the data gateway? Or is there another way to access on-prem sql servers from the power bi platform?
16 Replies
Are you saying that running an on-prem VM has a physical cost for you?
- No it doesn't. I was saying I need to run the gateway from Azure as the company is trying to move away from on-prem servers except in instances where absolutely required. So I'd need to create a VM in Azure but it's really expensive to run a VM 24x7 thus I was thinking of creating a docker image to do it.
The problem is that gateways by definition have to be on prem (well, they have to be able to access on prem data sources, and they have to be able to see the on prem AD). And gateways are rather pointless if they are not 24x7.
Of course you can go crazy and run them on Azure with a VPN connection back into your network. But that wholly defeats the purpose of putting the gateway as close as possible to your on prem data sources for performance reasons.
Think of all the data travel to and fro that would result from placing the gateway into Azure.
PedroC88 - Well, in theory you could use automation to only spin up the VM say, twice a day and schedule your refreshes to run in that window?
Well... this would technically work but a question I had for another day was how can I allow the users to refresh the datasources on demand? Note that the company is only now on-boarding PBI so this is all kinda new to us. If we have that scenario of allowing users to run the reports on demand how could we handle that?
As long as "on demand" means "from 8am UTC to 10am UTC because that's when the gateway is spun up" - that would work. Doesn't really matter if the refresh is scheduled, on demand, or OneDrive. If the gateway is down the refresh request will fail.
Hi everyone
I'm facing the same problem as PedroC88 of trying to set up a gateway in a container, to let powerBI refresh properly, but without the use of a VM.
So I was wondering if any solutions were found in the end.
What I'm interested in is if it's really possible install the gateway in a container and how I can achieve this.
If someone could help a newbie, it would be very appreciated.
Thx
