As previously noted, Power BI’s weak link for on premise integration has been the personal gateway. It relies on an end-user to install it on their desktop to provide refreshes from on premise data sources to the Power BI service.
Microsoft has now released the new Enterprise Gateway in preview. The new Enterprise Gateway provides similar functionality but in a centralized way that can be administered by IT.
Key features of the new Enterprise Gateway include:
- Ability to service a large number of end-users from a single or multiple gateways
- Centralized credentials and configuration of data sources
- Live connection to on premise SQL databases
A number of connectors are not available yet in this released but are expected in the near future – notably the SSAS connectors to tabular and multidimensional models.
