Manage connections and gateways - Please share any ideas for mitigating the connection sprawl

[DanielAmbler]

What are other peoples experience in this area of Fabric and what are you doing to monitor/mitigate/stop the sprawl?

Really not sure where the best place to post this would be, but I'm sure I cant be alone on this topic........

As part of a POC I've been running some tests on whether Fabric would be suitable to support a move from a centralised model to a decentralised model.

One of the issues I can see is the sprawl of connections created, that will be difficult to manage through anything other than user education.

 - Once somebody has contributor access, they can effectively generate new connections via a variety of Fabric objects, of which, only they are the owner.  The connections could also be duplicates of other connections.

 - These connections could be to unapproved services.

You get the picture.  The worry is I dont see anything on the roadmap and there are 159 pages of non-complete ideas that seem to hint at a few improvements in the area of connection management - i've upvoted where I can.

Thanks in advance

[v-huijiey-msft]

Hi @DanielAmbler ,

Thank you @Joshrodgers123 for your interest in this case.

There is no way to manage connections directly, but I have some suggestions for you:

First of all, make sure that these data sources are from the same server or the same batch of servers, if this is the case, you can consider importing more tables at once by using a data pipeline, and use this as the root node for other reports or products to use.

If possible, you can try to mount the local data source or import it to azure cloud data source, which does not require the creation of a connection type of data source, so that you do not have to create a connection to use.

Lastly, if there is no way to reduce the number, then you can split it into multiple workspace and gateway clusters.

Best Regards,
Yang
Community Support Team

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution  to help the other members find it more quickly.
If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know. Thanks a lot!

[DanielAmbler]

@v-huijiey-msft thanks for the response, and whilst I appreciate the time taken to respond, this is indicative of my experience with Fabric so far - fragmented conversations, fragmented information and a low level of understanding of the root problem on the first line. 

This isnt helping the sales pitch of Fabric or Microsoft at all.

[v-huijiey-msft]

Hi @DanielAmbler ,

Thanks for the reply from @Joshrodgers123 .

I have double checked this post and made this correction.

I feel for what you are going through. I understand that it must be very difficult for you, and it is really difficult to manage so many gateway links.

If it is convenient, you can put the relevant Idea link below this post, and I will vote for it, and I believe more people will do the same after seeing it.

Best Regards,
Yang
Community Support Team

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution  to help the other members find it more quickly.
If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know. Thanks a lot!

[Joshrodgers123]

What does this tool have to do with Microsoft Fabric?

[Joshrodgers123]

Curious what others are doing as well. It's become pretty unmanagable for us - we've kinda just given up. 

The connection page has a pretty bad UI as well so finding anything is not easy especially when it's cluttered with Power BI AS connections and SQL Enpoints that have no identifiable name.

I hope there is someone working on creating a more managable and user-friendly connection experience.