Power BI data storage In desktop App and Service

Hi Anonymous ,

Power BI desktop

Power BI Desktop uses xVelocity technology and loads data into memory. It uses a local instance of SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

For details, please see:

Connect to Power BI Desktop Model from Excel and SSMS

What makes up a Power BI desktop pbix file

Further more, how data is stored is determined by the method of data connection. DirectQuery/Live Connection is a direct connection to data source. Data will NOT be stored in Power BI model. Power BI will be a visualization layer, then query the data from data source every time. Power BI will only store metadata of tables (table names, column names, relationships…) but not the data. For Import mode, data is scratched from data source, being stored on Power BI side.

Reference: DirectQuery, Live Connection or Import Data?

Power BI Service

The Power BI service is built on Azure. Power BI uses Azure Active Directory (AAD) to store and manage user identities, and manages the storage of data and metadata using Azure BLOB and Azure SQL Database, respectively.

Reference: Power BI Security

Best regards,

Yuliana Gu