Power BI Gateway Issue - Snowflake

[Anonymous]

Hi Team,

We are developing a number of Power BI reports using Snowflake as the data source. We are using the direct query mode in the Power BI Desktop due to secuirty constraints and the real time data requirements. When we tried to publish the report from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service, we had to install an on-premise gateway. Even after installing the gateway and publishing to the service the report seems to be routing all the request through the gateway because the report goes down when the gateway is down.  I being comparitively new to Power BI would like to understand the following:-

1. Since Snowflake is a cloud data source , do we really require an On-Premise gateway to publish the report to the service

2. Is there any alternative to remove the dependency between the gateway and the published report (like using a server side data source)  so that report will not go down with the gateway.

Many thanks in advance.

[powerbipresto]

@Anonymous Snowflake+PowerBI with directquery is challenging, and one of those challenges is definitely the data gateway. This gateway causes a number of problems, including:

- Reliance on gateway to be up and running

- Lack of visibility into who is running queries from Snowflake query history (everyone appears as the gateway user)

- Inability to control row level security from Snowflake (but it can be handled via roles in PowerBI)

To respond to your specific questions:

1. As ridiculous as it seems, yes that is currently the case. 

2. Nope. Only solution is to have your people open the report in PowerBI Desktop, or to have your organization switch to Tableau.

[v-diye-msft]

Hi @Anonymous 

You also must install the Snowflake ODBC driver on computers that use the Snowflake connector, using the architecture that matches the installation of Power BI Desktop, either 32-bit or 64-bit. Just follow the following link and download the appropriate Snowflake ODBC driver.

You can refer to the document: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-connect-snowflake.

You may go through the troubleshooting links to resolve the issue: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/refresh-troubleshooting-refresh-scenarios

Here's an idea for connect to live data in Snowflake from the PowerBI https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/20446081-connect-to-live-data-in-snowflake-from-the-powerbi please kindly vote for it.

If you still have this issue for Power BI, you'd better create a support ticket in Power BI Support to get further help.