Forum Discussion
Gateway - Data Source best practice
I would use a single source for the top most folder. Performance will be the same but maintenance will be simpler.
Thanks for this reply, lbendlin . In the instance of SQL server data sources, we're thinking of cleaning up our existing sources to have only a single source per server which specifies the Master database. Then, any specific SQL we write against that datasource will include the database name in the object reference. E.g., FROM DATABASE.SCHEMA.TABLE instead of FROM SCHEMA.TABLE. That saves us (I believe?) from having a separate data source for each SERVER/DATABASE combination in use.
Are you aware of any MSFT or other documentation on the best practice here? Thanks for your time!
MarkPalmberg That would be nice but is doomed to fail for two very different reasons
1. Power BI Service does not support Sql.Databases()
2. Real life will mandate user permission controlled schema access. So not only can you not consolidate connections, you will have scenarios where you have to duplicate the exact same connection because different user credentials have different access scope.
Keep in mind: A gateway connection is created with credentials. These credentials control the access scope, regardless of the end user eventually consuming the connection*. This creates a risk of oversharing that you must be aware of, and mitigate accordingly
* with the exception of connections like SSAS that allow credentials pass-through
Thank you for this reply, lbendlin . I really appreciate your time and thoughts.
In our current state of affairs (I think often of Ellie Arroway's response to Congress when asked what she'd ask an intelligent being, should she encounter one on her trip through space: "...how did you survive this technological adolescence without destroying yourself?"), we have a system user permissioned at the gateway
whothat then, in turn, has server/database/schema access to our various SQL servers (down to EXEC permission by schema). This doesn't necessarily address the oversharing issue, but we're only a team of 4 on the reporting team, and we're trying to come up with ways to leverage dataflows that we can use to enable self-service access for the other folks in our org (premium capacity).I think our infrastucture team was looking at the proliferation of data sources on our main gateway and thinking, "there's got to be a better way." But maybe there's not? Lots still to learn. Thanks again for your time!
We are pushing the rope on that one too. For example we do not allow file connections on our enterprise gateways (we tell users to use folder/sharepoint folder connections). But we also have data sources where we absolutely must separate the users, so we have no choice but to duplicate the connection.
The gateway management pages have gotten a bit better at handling many hundreds of connections. The REST API also helps to mitigate some of the extra effort (although it is missing critical parts like connection user role management or connection test skipping)