Forum Discussion

jeppesal's avatar
jeppesal
Advocate II
9 years ago
Solved

On-premises data gateway OData OAuth2

Hi,

 

I have some questions regarding the on-prem gateway.

 

  1. Is it correct than when you use the Gateway ALL of the models connections has to go through the gateway and if so, why?
  2. If question is true (which I believe it is) why is the connectors and authentication methods not 1:1 with the options i Power BI Desktop?
  3. When will you add OAuth2 to OData in the on-prem Gateway?

 

I have a big project (with some Project Online OData sources) and adding on-prem SQL Server as a source with the on-prem gateway caused me a lot of trouble and lot of work, because all my online sources had to go through the Gateway with limited authentication options :(

  • dimazaid's avatar
    dimazaid
    9 years ago

    hi jeppesal,

    Thanks for taking the time to walk thru the scenario and sorry to hear your frustration, hopefully we can get this resovled and get your dataset refreshing. 
    Few corrections to the statements made below:

    - Both the personal and enterprise gateway are PRO features and cannot be used with a free account. Are you seeing anything different? 

    - You can use the enterprise gateway to run your OData data source, but the limitation is the gateway doesn't support oAuth. So you will have to either use a different auth type, or seperate the 2 data sources into 2 datasets. 

    - The reason why the online data sources have to go thru the gateway is to keep your on-prem data secure, esp when you have mashup scenarios

     

    Finally we acknowledge the auth types gap between the PBI desktop and using it in the service and we're working on addressing them soon in later releases. 

     

    Thanks,
    Dimah 

15 Replies

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable
    9 years ago

    Hi jeppesal,

    Firstly, when you need to refresh your dataset in Power BI Service, you would need to add all the data sources contained in the dataset under the on-premises gateway. The on-premises data gateway acts as a bridge, which helps make the behind-the-scenes communication from a user in the cloud to your on-premises data source and back to the cloud quick and secure. For more details, please review this article.

    Secondly, based on your description, you combine online data source and on-premises data source in a dataset and want to use on-premises gateway to refresh the dataset,right? On-premises gateway doesn't allow you to combine online data sources and on-premises data sources. This is a known issue that has been submitted in the following link and the feature that using on-premises gateway to work with online data sources is under review,  please vote it. And there is also an idea about adding OAuth2 method for some  online data sources, please vote it up.

    https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/13405644-combine-enterprise-gateway-and-online-data-sources


    Thirdly, to work around the issue in your scenario,  you can use the personal gateway to schedule refresh for your dataset


    Thanks,
    Lydia Zhang

    • jeppesal's avatar
      jeppesal
      Advocate II
      9 years ago

      Hi Lydia Zhang

       

      I know what the purpose of the gateway is and that is way I find it strange that my online/cloud data sources must go through the gateway. Yes, the gateway support online sources (they are configured in the Manage Gateway site on Power BI Online). I guess that it doesn’t use the gateway as such but it is configure under the gateway online (yes I'm confused as well).


      Again, why do I have to configure the online sources in “Manage my gateways” and second, why don’t online connectors in “Manage my gateways” have the same authentication options as online sources in Power BI Desktop (or personal gateway for that matter)?

       

      Please work on separating online from on prem or at least make the connector consistent. I don’t think that consistency should be voted as a feature, it should be as such from the start.


      Power BI is great but are missing some key elements before it is truly Enterprise Ready. It is not a valid solution to install a personal gateway on an Enterprise Server. Why is OAuth2 supported by the personal gateway and not by the Enterprise/on-prem? This doesn’t make sense and is sloppy work for Microsoft. Please fill in the gaps before you venture out in new exotic features.

       

      BR

      Jeppe Salmonsen

      • Anonymous's avatar
        Anonymous
        Not applicable
        9 years ago

        Hi jeppesal，

        Could you please tell us that if you combine online data source and on-premises data source in a dataset and want to use on-premises gateway to refresh the dataset? If so, it is not supported currently, please use personal gateway instead. Using personal gateway, you don’t need to add data sources under “Manage gateway”, and you just need to enter credential for your data sources, you will find “OAuth2” in the authentication method list.

        Regarding to the issue that on-premises gateway doesn’t allow us combine online data source and on-premises data source and doesn’t support OAuth2 method for some online data sources, please vote the above ideas to help Power BI team prioritize this feature

         

        Thanks,
        Lydia Zhang