Central Power BI Gateway for customer Power BI Services

[MaAachen]

Sorry, we are new to Power BI and coming from Qlik. We are planning to monitor individual traffic data from our central system to be shared with our customers depending on the customer on their personal PowerBI Report Server in other networks.

Question is how to use Data Gateways. Is it possible to built a central data gateway in our local network/ part of cloud and connect to different customer Power BI Services in their local network / cloud, or is it necessary to install gateways at every customer side and transfer data to customer servers by other means? So, is data gateway able to connect to different networks?

Thanks a lot.

[aj1973]

Hi @MaAachen 
Gateways are only needed when you have Data Sources in local servers. Standard Gateways could be installed On-Prem. If data sources are located in Cloud Services then no need for Gateways.   

[MaAachen]

Dear Amine Jerbi,

thanks for your answer. Both solutions are possible. I am looking for the most convenient and practival one.

1.) On-Prem with PBIRS. In this case we have to transfer data from our server via FTP to customer side. There will be up to 10 customers, each having an OnPrem Solution with data from our side.

2.) Cloud Solution with PBI Service for each customer. In this case it would be nice to install a data gateway on our side (So no FTP Transfer necessary). Ideally we would have ONE Data Gateway on our side and different customer PBIS would connect to this gateway if possible. Or would it be necessary in this scenario to install a gateway for each customer server? Is it possible at all, because our server and the server of our customers are in different servers and are processed via different Power BI licenses.

Sorry if my question is stupid. I think it is a different case as the standard case.

Best regards,

Andre

[R1k91]

where are source data?

on customer end or on your network? where do you want to show the data? on your side or on client side?

you must install a gateway per each "destination tenant". each gateway must see the source data.

you're talking about PBIRS that is an on-prem software, therefore gateway is not needed.

[MaAachen]

Dear R1k91,

thanks for your answer and help. 

Source data is currently generated on our server. We have a portal with article data. Articles are from different manufacturers. We process this portal and have information, how often people are looking for articles of each manufacturer. We have information which articles are searched most, and so on. 

So we want to install a dashboard for each interested customer on-premise or in cloud. Only problem is, how our source data is transfered individually to customer side. By other means outside PBI like FTP or WebService or directly with PowerBI Tools and Data Gateway.

So: Source Date is originated at our side and the display of individual reports (only statistics on their articles) would be on customers' side.

Best regards,

Andre

[R1k91 · Accepted solution]

Power BI can be exposed to third-parties directly from your tenant without the need to "export" data on other premises.

you have multiple options to explore but relevent to mention IMHO are:

- invite customers/vendors to your Azure AD as guests and to provide them access to Power BI Apps Distribute content to external guest users with Azure AD B2B - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

- embedding in a custom portal Power BI usage scenarios: Embed for your customers - Power BI | Microsoft Learn