Migration of a data mart and licensing (Fabric + PowerBI)

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Hello dear community,

I need your hint, because I cannot find an optimal solution by myself. Perhaps, someone can give me hint.

I have following situation: our customer uses MS Fabric (reserved capacity, F2 license). We export data from Power Platform using "Azure Synapse Link" to a lakehouse. Then I build a star schema using SQL views in that lakehouse. My account has no assigned Power BI license (it means - free license) , but in the past I got a trial license (means - Premium). While having that Preium / Trial, I created a datamart, which is now a basic source of reports.  I'm the owner of the data mart, it is located in the workspace with "Fabric capacity"-license.

When my Premium / Trial was nearly over, I found out that users would losse access to it, because it is a premium feature. I prolongated my trial and my key user got a personal PPU PowerBI license. Now we a lloking for a way to move that data mart into "her" Workspace (with license type "PPU") to keep him alive after my Trial expires again. Unfortunatelly, I have not found any proper solution yet.

So, here are my questions:

• Can anyone explain me a correlation between a Workspace license (Fabric / PPU) and personal license (I have free, my key user has PPU)?
• Will my Data mart be disabled / "dead" after my Trial expires?
• What is a best way to migrate my data mart to a PPU-Workspace and re-assign a new ownner?

Thanks in advance. I have to admit, that licensing in Power BI and Fabric is still a kind of mystery for me. Many licenses, which can be combined with each other. This does not make the life easier…

I would appreciate any assistance.

Best regards from Hamburg / Germany.

P.S. In this post I asked already about an impact of a license on a datamart, but unfortunatelly I haven't found a solution yet.

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Here is my situation: 

- company has a F2 Fabric capacity

- User U1 has a PPU license, my license is free (and Trial is running)

- Workspace A has a fabric license

- Lakehouse (created from PowerPlatform) is located in that Workspace A

- Object of type "data mart" is located in the same Workspace, it was created by me - no way to assign the ownership to User U1

- My problem: when my Trial expires, the "data mart" will be inaccessible for others. So, I'm looking for a optimal solution;

I hope, I could describe it better this time.

[lbendlin]

You are supposed to create a DataWarehouse. Datamarts are not a go-foward option.

[Andrey_Hamburg]

In the future - yes. But at the present I have that datamart and I hope, that someone can give me a hint, how I can resolve my issues.

Do you know why I f do not have "Take Over" button in my datamart properties?

[Tutu_in_YYC]

I can relate to Ibendlin latest response. It is not clear what you have built. Did you build a semantic model in lakehouse or datamart?

[Tutu_in_YYC]

Anyway if its really datamart:

• Can anyone explain me a correlation between a Workspace license (Fabric / PPU) and personal license (I have free, my key user has PPU)?
  - Simplified, Fabric licensing is broken down 2 types, user license and organizational license. Organizational license are applied on workspaces, the higher the license sku, the more compute power you get for the operations.
  User license is for user, but broken down further to free/pro/PPU. Free has limited functionalities mostly for personal reporting. Pro is for collaboration with other users and accessing workspace. PPU is for extra compute and functionalities. PPU can also be applied on workspace, but everybody in the workspace and anybody consuming items in the workspace (eg report users) must have PPU
  
  
  
• Will my Data mart be disabled / "dead" after my Trial expires?
  -No, anybody in the workspace will be able to Take Over the datamart
  
  
• What is a best way to migrate my data mart to a PPU-Workspace and re-assign a new ownner?
  - Just turn the current workspace to PPU and ask new owner to Take Over
  
  

[Andrey_Hamburg]

"PPU can also be applied on workspace, but everybody in the workspace and anybody consuming items in the workspace (eg report users) must have PPU" --- is PRO license not enough for consuming reports?

[Tutu_in_YYC]

Pro is not enough, if you workspace in on PPU.

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Hello,

I created an object of type "data mart". Thanks for you hints, but I have following concerns:

- The workspace where my datamart is located has license type "Fabric", because it is used as target workspace for data export from PowerPlatform (using Azure Synapse Link). Will changing the license type (Fabric -> PPU) break that data export?

- Unfortunatelly, I do not have "Take over" button im my interface:

There is no button between "last changed by" and "description". 

My idea is to find a way to move that datamart from "fabric"-licensed workspace into "ppu"-licensed workspace. Unfortunatelly, no way found yet.

kind regards from Hamburg

[Tutu_in_YYC]

I think you may not have the correct Role in the workspace. You must be a "Member" to take over items in the workspace. Can you check if you have the correct role?

As for migrating, i havent found an easy way yet. You may have to recreate using the M query in advanced editor or create a template (pqt file, see picture below,), create the new semantic model, and then you can re-point your existing report to the new one.

Update: i just checked if we could import pqt file into datamart, doesnt look like it is possible. But you can definitely create dataflows with the pqt and a semantic model separately.

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Hello,

I'm an Administrator of the workspace. But I suppose, there is no "Take over" -button for an object of type "data mart". Because I saw this button on a semantic model and object of type "Warehouse".

I will try to use Power Query Template, thanks for the hint. If it does not work, I decide to rebuild my solution using object of type "Warehouse". 

Kind regards from Hamburg

[Tutu_in_YYC]

Yeah it is so odd that you dont have the "Take Over" button, because i have it on mine.

Rebuilding it is probably the next best option, shouldnt be too hard with either PQT or the M queries in the advanced editor. Alles gute!

[lbendlin]

What is a best way to migrate my data mart to a PPU-Workspace and re-assign a new ownner?

A datamart is just lipstick on a dataflow pig.  Take your dataflow code and move it to a dataflow gen2 which can directly write into the lakehouse (among other destinations)

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Hello,

I'm sorry, I do not understand what you mean with "dataflow code". I use SQl views from Lakehouse as source and create a data model out of it. And I created it in "Fabric" interface. Where should I search for dataflow code? Do you mean all those transformations I can see in PowerQuery-editor when clicking on "Tranform data"?

And much more relvant for us is the data model in data mart. Relationships between dimensions and facts, format properties of the attributes - all this is done in data model. How can I get it out of data mart?

Best regards

[lbendlin]

 Do you mean all those transformations I can see in PowerQuery-editor when clicking on "Tranform data"?

yes

[lbendlin]

datamart has a different meaning in Power BI.  Please describe your scenario in more detail and try to use the official terms.

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Hello,

I use official terms. I created an artefact of type "datamart" in "Fabric", using Lakehouse views as data source.

[colbertw]

From within the client's data mart, can you use Get data  connecting to Datamarts with your data mart as the source?  If there is still new data flowing from the Lake; can the client create copies of the dataflows you created from the lake to their datamart? 

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Sorry, I do not understand what you mean...

[colbertw]

I don't have Fabric, so I don't know if the connectors are different, but assuming they are the same: 

1. Have your client create a datamart.  

2. Use the datamart connector to connect their datamart to your datamart.  

3. Refresh the data to get what is currently in your datamart into theirs.

If your datamart/workspace is going to be removed/inactivated: 

4. Use the powerqueries/m code generated in the Advanced editor of your datamart (they'll need to credential to the lake) to build out their queries from the lake to their data mart.

[Andrey_Hamburg]

Hello,

OK, now I see what you meant. I do not think, that this way of connection will move my semantic model from datamart A to datamart B. In this case datamart A acts as just data source, not exposing the semantic model below.

Anyway, after discussion with a customer we decided to move to Fabric-"Warehouse". I could import all tables using Power Query Template, and later I will rebuild a semantic model.

Regards,
Andrey