about built-in connectivity and integration between azure and power bi

[arunaramana]

Hello There,

I have been going through the document titled 'Azure and Power BI' in Microsoft Power BI documentation; in the document beginning it was mentioned as:

"Whether your data processing is cloud-based or on-premises, straightforward, or complex, single-sourced or massively scaled, warehoused, or real-time, Azure and Power BI have the built-in connectivity and integration to bring your business intelligence efforts to life."

I didn't understand the context of mentioning whether your data processing... that were highlighted in the bold. Would anyone please help me understand the context in comparison with the built-in connectivity between azure and power BI.

Please find the link for the document I am referring to.https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/service-azure-and-power-bi 

Thank you for giving your valuable time

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @arunaramana 

Whether your data processing is cloud-based or on-premises, straightforward, or complex, single-sourced or massively scaled, warehoused, or real-time,

The context highlighted in the bold means that you can get data from Azure DB in cloud-based(Power BI Service) or on-premises (Power BI Desktop). Power BI have the built-in connectivity to connect to Azure DB.

In Power BI Desktop:

In Power BI Service:

Way1: We could get data from Azure DB in Power BI Service. But Power BI will suggest you to get data in Power BI Desktop to build a report instead of do this in Power BI Service.

Way2: Build dataflow in Power BI Service by Azure DB. For reference: Creating a dataflow

"complex, single-sourced or massively scaled," means that you can get other data source after you get data from Azure DB. 

"warehoused, or real-time" means that you can choose the connection mode to connect to Azure DB. For example, if you connect to Azure SQL, you can choose Import mode or Direct Query mode to connect to your data source.

There are three connection modes in Power BI, Import, Direct Query or Live connection.

Import mode will load all data model into Power BI. Direct Query will only load metadata into Power BI, then it will send query to data source directly to get the latest data. Live connection mode won't load any data model to Power BI.

You may refer to this blog for more details about which connection mode your data source supports.

For reference: Power BI data sources

Best Regards,
Rico Zhou

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