Power BI as a Federation Tool

[mickeyhaldia]

Hi ,

I am new to Power BI. I just learnt that one of the features of Power BI is to build a Dashboard or Storyboard by pinning the insights from other reports which may be extracted from various sources. Now, while working, I came across a use case where the client had multiple data sources including Salesforce, SAP , SQL Server and Unstructured data and they were inplementing a virtualization layer and then performing their reporting on Birst. I wanted to know if we can by-pass this federation layer and directly build reports on Power BI? Can't they directly connect to these data sources through Get Data and then build the reports?

[Anonymous]

I would be hesitant to say conclusively yes or no.  There are often good reasons to create a virtualisation layer from a security and performance perspective.  There are also good reasons to cut out the middle man and go direct in some other circumstances.  The ideal solution for you and your data will really depend on the whole situation and making use of general data best practices when considering everything.