Power BI on premise Report Server+Power BI Desktop vs power bi service

[Anonymous]

Currently, the only way to use features such as creating Dashboards, pinning, Direct query, etc., is by using Power BI Service? If that is the case, can I create Dashboards in Service and then publish them to our on premise Power BI Report Server? Will we ever get the same level of functionality between Desktop and Service?

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@Anonymous There is no parity between the Service and PBI Report Server. There is no concept of a dashboard in PBI Report Server, and I would assume that the expectation should only be that you get what the Desktop provides. This is one of the huge advantages of a (Saas) Power BI Service vs. an on premises solution.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply. That is what I was suspecting. Do you think that this kind of functionality will ever be made on premise? The fact that you can do this in Tableau and not in Power BI put's Microsoft in a disadvantage as many companies are not ready yet (mostly due to security concerns) to migrate to the Cloud.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@Anonymous I can't speak for MSFT, but I would doubt it. As for the "Security Concerns" I would encourage anyone to compare the level of security and compliance certifications and levels that MSFT holds in its datacenters that support cloud solutions and compare them to their own infrastructure. The entire arguement about not moving to the cloud is becoming less and less valid for a whole slew of reasons.

[Anonymous]

I understand your comments about improved security, but still, many companies don't want to migrate to the cloud yet. Still, the fact that the competition (Tableau, not sure if others also) can do this and MSFT can't is a concern. Also, the extra cost associated to using Power BI service is also a concern for many companies. Anyway, thanks for your help.

PS : The biggest concern I have as a BI developer/engineer is the fact of relying on the cloud more and more. What happens if you have an outage, you are not able to run your reports/dashboards. This is a legitimate concern for many. Unfortunately we are moving in a direction where almost everything will eventually be in the cloud, this will make availability concerns greater.