Power BI migration and VM and gateway

[YashikaAgrawal]

Hi Team, Please need help.

We are working on Power BI migration from INFY tenant to TATA tenant.

Infy gateway is in VM which is on-premises.

We havent planned for on-premises or cloud VM for TATA tenant.

Questions:
a. since the TATA tenant is not ready yet, planning to
go for Cloud VM in INFY, is it easier to shift from INFY tenant to TATA tenant later when TATA tenant is ready.
b. Will the cross tenant work in this case for Power BI gateways.
c. Best practices, should we got for on-premises or Azure cloud for VM in new tenant.

d. Can we use one gateway installed under INFY server to connect to both tom@infy.com and tom@TATA.com, provided the gateway machine can access both, and the configured credentials have the required permissions on each data source.

Thanks

[dataflip]

As you're migrating Power BI  from the INFY tenant to the TATA tenant, it's important to note that Power BI gateways are tenant-bound, so a gateway registered under INFY cannot be used in the TATA tenant. If you set up a cloud VM under INFY temporarily, you’ll still need to reinstall and re-register a new gateway under TATA once that tenant is ready. Cross-tenant access for Power BI gateways is not supported, so each tenant must have its own dedicated gateway. Regarding VM setup, best practice is to use an Azure cloud VM over on-premises for better scalability, reliability, and integration with Microsoft services.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Hi YashikaAgrawal,

We would like to follow up and see whether the details we shared have resolved your problem.
If you need any more assistance, please feel free to connect with the Microsoft Fabric community.

Thank you.

[Poojara_D12 · Accepted solution]

Hi @YashikaAgrawal 

In your Power BI migration scenario from the INFY tenant to the TATA tenant, careful planning around the data gateway is essential. Starting with (a), if you're considering deploying a cloud VM within the INFY environment temporarily, this can simplify the later migration to the TATA tenant, provided you maintain clear configuration documentation. However, some reconfiguration will still be needed—specifically, the gateway will have to be reinstalled or re-registered under the TATA tenant once it's ready, as gateways are tenant-specific. For (b), cross-tenant access using a Power BI gateway is not directly supported—gateways are registered to a single tenant and cannot natively serve multiple tenants simultaneously. Thus, a gateway registered under INFY cannot be used for datasets or dataflows in the TATA tenant. Regarding (c), best practice leans toward using an Azure-hosted VM in the target (TATA) tenant environment, as this simplifies network management, scalability, and disaster recovery while also being more aligned with cloud-native architecture. Lastly, for (d), although a gateway machine (physical or virtual) can technically access both INFY and TATA data sources if network permissions allow, the gateway software itself can only be registered to one tenant at a time, so it cannot simultaneously serve users (like tom@infy.com and tom@TATA.com) across tenants. To support both tenants concurrently, you would need to install separate gateway instances—each registered to the respective tenant, ideally on separate VMs or using gateway clusters.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Thank you @collinq for your reply on the community forum.

Hi YashikaAgrawal,

We appreciate your question in the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum and thank you for following up.

About point D, which is using the cross-tenant gateway, the main thing is Power BI gateways belong to one tenant only. You cannot share a gateway across different tenants. For example, a gateway set up in the INFY tenant cannot be used by people in the TATA tenant, even if the same machine can access both networks or data sources.

What you can do in some limited way is add tom@TATA.com as a guest user (using B2B) in the INFY tenant, and then allow him to see INFY reports that use the INFY gateway. But this works only inside the INFY tenant. It will not let tom@TATA.com publish datasets using that gateway in the TATA tenant.

The best way is to create a new Azure hosted gateway in the TATA tenant when it is ready. This is better according to the Fabric roadmap and keeps things clean and following the rules between tenants.

Also, please check these links for more information:
Add B2B collaboration users - Microsoft Entra External ID | Microsoft Learn
Guidance for deploying a data gateway for the Power BI service - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

We hope this information helps you solve the problem. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask the Microsoft Fabric community.

Thank you.

[collinq]

Hi @YashikaAgrawal ,

I will try to take a run at some of this.

For both a and b the answer is no.  You cannot share a gateway across tenants.  Each tenant is its own thing.   Therefore, you cannot "migrate" across tenants.  Using separate tenants is still a very manual process when moving items from one to the other.

For "C" - Microsoft would tell you that going to Azure cloud is the way to go.  It probably is.  With Fabric and with all the changes coming the cloud method is going to be more current and more functional.  This comes to licensing and to if you have the in house capability to run the appropriate technology to keep everything working.

For "d" - yes, you can have it reach both tenants.  You do this by considering one of the tenants "external".  As in, this is just like if you were sharing between two totally different companies (as stated before, the tenants are not "joined" in any way and are separate).

[YashikaAgrawal]

Thanks for your reply!

For point D,  Do you have any documentation or setup guide on how to configure this kind of cross-tenant gateway access? Would really appreciate it if you could share.