SQL Database needs to be archived

[clem312]

Hi,

My SQL database used in Power BI has 3 years of historical data.

It is too much for the application that uses it on a daily bases.

I need to clean at least one year. But I need to keep this year in my Power BI ?

How can I do that ?

Clement

[edhans · Accepted solution]

Won't work. Power BI will remove data when loading and load fresh. You could use incremental refresh and have it never clear that partition, but it will likley see those changes anyway and clean it up. 

I would consider moving that 1 year of data to a Dataflow, then in Power Query append the dataflow to your SQL data that now only has 2 years, and that will be 3 years.

But, that will still risk losing data if you ever refresh that dataflow, as it will again, purge and reload.

Bottom line is, best practice, DO NOT use Power BI and related technologies for archival. They are not designed for that. Use your database, put it on another system and append in Power Query, etc. Even if you dump that 1 year of data to a CSV file and store that in SharePoint, that is much more resilient than trying to get Power BI to keep it.