Forum Discussion
Impactful Individualdirect lake conection
in which scenrio we should use direct lake connection mode for semantic models? do we need to use it when we use lakehouse or one lake and we cant import so much data in power bi?
Hi powerbiexpert22 ,
Direct Lake mode is specially indicated for when you have huge datasets (billions of rows) or you have data that needs to be "near real time" when you are using the lakehouse.
Overall rule is that if it's working in import mode you should continue with import mode. You can do an import model from a lakehouse or a warehouse no problem using the SQL connector on the artifacts.
However here is some links about the information on the options and how you can choose the options.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im7Cmr1il3o
https://www.sqlbi.com/blog/marco/2024/04/06/direct-lake-vs-import-mode-in-power-bi/
3 Replies
- MFelix
Super User
Hi powerbiexpert22 ,
Direct Lake mode is specially indicated for when you have huge datasets (billions of rows) or you have data that needs to be "near real time" when you are using the lakehouse.
Overall rule is that if it's working in import mode you should continue with import mode. You can do an import model from a lakehouse or a warehouse no problem using the SQL connector on the artifacts.
However here is some links about the information on the options and how you can choose the options.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im7Cmr1il3o
https://www.sqlbi.com/blog/marco/2024/04/06/direct-lake-vs-import-mode-in-power-bi/
- cengizhanarslan
As of my experience Import mode still is the best considering performance and CU usage. But if you have very large fact tables where Import refresh time/memory becomes painful, but you still want fast interactive queries. Direct Lake can read OneLake Delta tables directly and keep performance high.
v-achippaCommunity Support
Hi powerbiexpert22,
Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Fabric Community.
Thank you MFelix and cengizhanarslan for the prompt response.
As we haven’t heard back from you, we wanted to kindly follow up to check if the solution provided by the user's for the issue worked? or let us know if you need any further assistance.
Thanks and regards,
Anjan Kumar Chippa
