Gateway vs Fully on Cloud

[thewake]

Hi,

Just a quick query really - is there any difference between the functionality you get from Power BI if you use a gateway vs using data from the cloud itself?

I am looking to move from on prem to the main Power BI service to take advantage of the increased functionality using a gateway to an on prem data source. However I don't want to shoot myself in the foot if I won't get the full functionality of Power BI because I'll be adopting the hybrid approach.

Thanks for any advice!

[v-shex-msft]

Hi @thewake,

I'd like to suggest you refer to following document to know about power bi data refresh.

Data refresh in Power BI

In addition, you can also take a look at following link which mention similar things.

On-Prem vs. Cloud?

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

[thewake]

Hi.

Many thanks for your reply. I don't think the whole on prem vs cloud debate applies here as by using the hybrid approach we are in essence using the cloud service (This is why we are moving away from the on prem solution we have now).

I suppose I just wondered if there was a definitive list of the disadvantages of using hybrid (If any). Basically instead of Cloud vs on prem I'm looking for Fully cloud vs Hybrid.

I will have a read through the other article you linked to and see if I can find anything in there that might confirm.

Thanks.

[v-shex-msft]

HI @thewake,

In fact, on premise gateway also support mixed data source, but it has some limitation on it.

You can refer to below link to turn on this option to use on premise gateway to handle cloud service:

The On-premises data gateway enables you to merge or append on-premises and cloud data sources in the same query. 

Merge or append on-premises and cloud data sources

You can't do advanced operation on mixed data sources(append, merge, combine, reference other query, invoke custom function), or it will failed to refresh.

Regards,
Xiaoxin Sheng