Power BI report refresh causing server to move at a crawl

[Anonymous]

Is there anyway to reduce the load on the server for large datasets?  It seems to spike right when it is refreshing the power bi reports on our end.
I'm opperating on an SQL server, with an on-premise gateway. It is used for other things then just Power BI.  The problem seems to stem from the automated refreshes I set up for the reports.  Is there a way to keep them up to date but reduce the loads on our server?  Any tips and tricks to help with performace for the server?

[TeigeGao · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

To reduce the work on the SQL Server, many methods options. First, we can reduce the dataset size, we can remove some useless column in the dataset, we can also do some calculation in the SQL Server rather than PowerBI, then push the result to PowerBI, we can prepare this part of data when the server is free.

The second method looks at the SQL Server end, we can consider creating a read-only replica on SQL Server with the Always-On solution for report usage. This will reduce the work on the Primary server.

Best Regards,

Teige

[Anonymous]

When you say dataset do you mean the dataflow data itself or the data once it is pulled into the Power BI report?