How to setup incremental refresh alongside a schedule refresh without a default gateway?

[vminvsky]

Hello, 

I'm currently running a VM to host the default gateway, but it's expensive and inefficent. Is there a way to do an incremental refresh alongside a schedule refresh without a default gateway? I have the incremental refresh set up, but when it's not connected to the gateway, I have no way of scheduling the refresh.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[v-xiaosun-msft]

Hi @vminvsky ,

Incremental refresh extends scheduled refresh operations by providing automated partition creation and management for dataset tables that load new and updated data frequently. Therefore, when you use incremental refresh, the service dynamically partitions the data and separates the data that needs to be refreshed frequently from the data that is not frequently refreshed which can refresh faster.

Incremental refresh has no direct connection with scheduled refresh.

When you configure scheduled refresh, please notice that some data sources such as data in the cloud do not need to use a gateway to refresh configuration; Other data sources such as local data require a gateway.

Please check your data source and connect to a gateway for scheduled refresh if necessary.

Please refer to the following documents.

Incremental refresh and live data for datasets in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Configure scheduled refresh - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Add or remove gateway data sources - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ xiaosun

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[edhans · Accepted solution]

Incremental Refresh and Scheduled Refresh are not directly related.

Scheduled refresh requires a gateway to refresh the data.
Incremental Refresh simply partitions the data out so when you perform a scheduled refresh the refresh is faster because only current data (last 5 days, 3 months, 2 quarters, whatever you specify) are refreshed and anything older is kept in the cloud, never needing to be refreshed again. The service will eventually drop off old data, again, depending on your settings. You could retain 2 years, 5 years, or 50 years.

And if you need a gateway to refresh, then that VM has to be running.

[edhans]

Hi @vminvsky - I was wondering if you had any questions on the info I provided, or the info that was repeated in the thread?