Web content requires personal gateway - why?

[JozeM]

If I publish a report from CSV files on SharePoint OL everything works as expected.

Then I add an external public web source (http://www.geonames.org/countries/) and all of the sudden published report says it can't connect to (required) personal gateway (PG) which is again expected as I haven't got one).

Why is PG required in this scenario?

[NimaiAhluwalia]

Hello @JozeM 

The on-premises data gateway acts as a bridge to provide quick and secure data transfer between on-premises data (data that isn't in the cloud) and several Microsoft cloud services. These cloud services include Power BI, PowerApps, Power Automate, Azure Analysis Services, and Azure Logic Apps. By using a gateway, organizations can keep databases and other data sources on their on-premises networks, yet securely use that on-premises data in cloud services.

And coming to your question we require that gateway as the external source is not a cloud service and it requires a secure transfer of data from the source to the service which is provided by the gateway.

All the data coming from the web requires a personal gateway.

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[Brunner_BI]

I do not think that is correct, all my data sources are web based and I do not need a personal gateway, what would be the point of having a web source when having to have your computer on?
Please check out my blog post for more information

https://www.brunner.bi/post/avoiding-personal-gateway-for-web-data-sources-in-power-bi

[Brunner_BI]

I have actually written a blog post about this since by default the web connector can create a function that you require the personal gateway.

You need to manually change this function in order for it to work.

https://www.brunner.bi/post/avoiding-personal-gateway-for-web-data-sources-in-power-bi

[GStrickland]

I've read your blog article and replied there but I thought I would reply here as well. When I select Get Data > Web and look in Power Query I see that the function is already set to Web.Contents. Once I publish to PowerBi service the requires gateway is toggled to on. Using a personal gateway is not a viable option for me. 

[v-haibl-msft]

@JozeM

Power BI team are currently working on improving the refresh of cloud based data sources. As part of this, one of the changes they have made recently is that new datasets that leverage import from Web pages will not be automatically configured for refresh in Power BI service, and will require the use of a gateway. Please consider using the Personal Gateway or On-Premises data gateway if you would like to use this capability. They are working on removing this restriction in the future.

You can keep an eye on this post.

Best Regards,

Herbert