What types of data sources allow direct cloud connections?

[xli629b]

Some data sources allow direct cloud connections, and others require an on-prem. gateway. Is it the case that connectors that use ODBC under the hood generally require on-prem. gateways since they require an ODBC driver to be installed, which is not available on the cloud? For example, the Starburst Enterprise connector requires a gateway.

However, there do seem to be some ODBC-based connectors, such as the Google BigQuery connector, that are available as cloud datasources. Is that because Microsoft has a few ODBC drivers like the Google BigQuery ODBC driver pre-installed on the Microsoft cloud gateway? And only those ODBC-based connectors can be used as direct cloud datasources without an on-prem. gateway?

[v-huijiey-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @xli629b ,

I’d like to acknowledge the valuable input provided by GilbertQ .

Examples of direct cloud connections include:

Azure SQL Database: A fully managed relational database service provided by Microsoft Azure.

Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse): An analytics service that can be used to analyze large amounts of data.

Spark in Azure HDInsight: A big data analytics platform for processing large datasets.

OneLake Datacenter: A datacenter for accessing existing data and reporting.

These connections are very convenient and do not require the use of a local gateway.

For more information, see the "Types of Power BI Data Sources" section of the following article:

Power BI Data Sources: Different Types & How to Connect Them (windsor.ai)

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.

Best Regards,
Yang
Community Support Team

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution  to help the other members find it more quickly.
If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know. Thanks a lot!

[GilbertQ]

Hi @xli629b 

Below is a list of all the data sources supported for power api. If you click on the data source that you are interested in under the capabilities, it will show you if it needs a gateway.

List of all Power Query connectors - Power Query | Microsoft Learn