PowerBI Gen1 dataflow change Gateway

[JoseRomeroData]

Hello everyone,

Recently one of our Gateway cluster was struggling with all the traffic generated by dataflows gen 1,so we decided to create a new cluster and migrate some dataflows to that cluster.

Before changing any dataflow configuration I would like know if there is anything that we should take into account, for example, what happens if a dataflow has incremental refresh and we change his gateway, will this force a full refresh of the dataflow?.

Kind Regards and thanks.

JoseR.

[Poojara_D12 · Accepted solution]

Hi @JoseRomeroData 

You're planning to migrate some Gen1 dataflows to a new Power BI Gateway cluster to reduce the load on an existing cluster that's been overwhelmed by traffic. A key concern is whether dataflows with incremental refresh will be affected—specifically, whether changing the gateway will force a full refresh instead of preserving the incremental behavior. Generally, changing the gateway itself does not automatically trigger a full refresh, as long as the new gateway is correctly configured to match the original connection (same server name, credentials, privacy level, and data source path). However, if there's any mismatch or the system perceives the data source as different—for example, if the connection string changes slightly—Power BI may consider it a new source and invalidate existing refresh partitions, resulting in a full refresh. To avoid this, ensure the new gateway cluster uses identical settings and test with a non-critical dataflow first. This will help verify that incremental refresh continues to function as expected without data loss or unexpected processing overhead.

[JoseRomeroData]

Thanks @Poojara_D12 for clarifying it

[lbendlin]

No, it won't force a full refresh.

Why not add a cluster member to your existing gateway?

[JoseRomeroData]

Because, one of the requirements was to isolate those dataflows G1