Help with Gateways

[campelliann]

Hi there,

So until now I have been working with a coleague developer, we both have our personal mode gateways. Usually for a certain report we have the gateways on my machine, and if I go on vacations she turns the gateway on hers.

I recently discovered that we can both share the same enterprise gateway.  2 questions:

1) Can we have both the same gateway (or cluster ) running on each of our machines, so if my machine goes down for some reason we have hers?
2) Its similar to one, but lets say I need to install the gateway on 5 different Virtual Machines for acessing 5 SQL Server DB. Can I use the same gateway on all machines. Do I need to create 5 different users or something.. How does this work?

Thanks

[TomMartens · Accepted solution]

Hey @campelliann ,

from an architectural point of view, I do not recommend using the Power BI gateway in personal mode. I always recommend using the gateway in standard mode (fka - enterprise gateway).

Install the gateway on a server machine that is always up and running.

One gateway can support more than one data source, for this reason it's not necessary to install 5 gateways for your 5 SQL Server..

From a security point of view I recommend using 5 different accounts that are used when the data source is established.
If you are using windows authenticataion you also need a dedicated account running the gateway. I recommend reading this article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/service-gateway-onprem

Regards,

Tom

[campelliann]

Hmm thanks @TomMartens. But lets say I have 5 different SQL databases, on 5 different remote machines, and that I also need VPN for all.
Lets say I install the gateway on a server that has the 5 vpns always on. I believe this would work. But if I am not able to have the VPN always on, I would need to install the gateway directly on the virtual/remote machines, right?

[vanessafvg]

I am not sure about no2, but yes to 1, maybe this can help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPFRLy6XL1s