What is the best way to replicate data from Azure Server?

[MattAllington]

I have an Azure Server set up and have SQL Server 2014 installed.  Is there a method to refresh my Power BI datasets directly to my Azure Server?  Or is is simply a matter of installing the Enterprise Gateway?

[v-yuezhe-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @MattAllington,

Do you want to refresh data from SQL Server on Azure VM in Power BI? If that is the case, based on my test, we are not able to directly connect to the SQL instance from Power BI Service.

However, we can firstly connect to SQL Server on Azure VM from Power BI Desktop, create reports and then publish the PBIX file to Power BI Service. In order to schedule refresh for the dataset, we will need to install personal gateway or on-premises gateway and add data source to the installed gateway.


Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

[MattAllington]

Thanks Lydia.  I suspected this would be the case, but wanted to check.  If I had a SQL Database (not on a VM) in Azure, would it be different?

[v-yuezhe-msft]

Hi @MattAllington,

There is no need to install gateway when you refresh data from Azure SQL database. Power BI Service will automatically refresh the data hourly.

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang