PBI Report Server architectural considerations , with mode IMPORT

[Bamak]

Hi

I would like hosted on Power BI report server some reports with  import mode for datasets
My client asks me for my choice of server architecture
I saw on the blogs production configuration of the type:

• C: 127 GB VHD - OS only.
• E: 127 GB VHD - SQL Server / SSRS / databases / etc.
• 2 Virtual CPUs.
• Enabled Dynamic Memory is set to allow for a maximum memory of 512MB to 8GB.
• Windows 2016 Datacenter is installed.

It seems coherent to me
That said I have a question about the need for a SQL Server insance.
Is it only for storing reports metadata ?

Because,  I read on blogs that when importing data(or not necessarily?)  , power BI report server uses its own Tabular Analysis Service instance much like Power BI Desktop.

It is local and not configurable.Is it true please ?

I would have 10 datasets of about 300MB in size, so I should plan
this additional disk & ram storage on the server.

According to you,  are 5 GB more for the disk and the ram  reasonable ?

Thank you in advance and congratulations to the forum

[Jon-Heide · Accepted solution]

Import/Cached datasets are loaded completely into memory for perf reasons. So, you would be best to increase the RAM available on the report server machine. For the SQL database, suggest following SQL hardware guidelines or scale out. The underlying SQL database can become a bottlneck if there is a lot of concurrent traffic. Also the cached models are stored in SQL tables, so those need to be streamed from DB to server when loaded. 

[xavier76]

hello, in my organization we have to import report in power bi server but we don't know I can guarantee encryption of the data at rest. You say that imported data is loaded completely into memory. Isn't there a cache on the power bi server?

thanks,

Marco.