Connectivity with DataBricks / Spark?

[jmangana]

has anyone used the Power BI solution with a DataBricks implementation?  Please advise.  Thanks.  

[mllopis · Accepted solution]

Hi jmangana,

We recently added a new connector to Power BI Desktop that allows users to connect to their Spark clusters. Please check the September Update announcement for more details:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/2015/09/23/44-new-features-in-the-power-bi-desktop-september...

Have you had a chance to try this new connector? If so, we would be interested in hearing about how was your experience with it.

Thanks,
M.

[KirkNason]

Do you know if the the connector is via DirectQuery or does it import the data into the model.
We are looking to use the power of the Spark Cluster to handle the queries, similar to the SSAS Tabular connector

[syepes]

Hello,

I have managed to connect Power BI to our own in house cluster Spark.

You actually need to use the HiveThriftServer2 to use Spark with Power BI.

Setup:

• Install Spark ODBC: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=616229&clcid=0x409*
• Setup a ODBC (e.g. SPARKMS) with the host:10000 of the server thats running the Hive Thrift Server
• Start Power Bi a using ODBC DataSource with the prevously created ODBC: dsn=SPARKMS
• Input the SparkSQL you whant to work with..

Note that this does not really work will with very big datasets...

Regards and hope this helps.