Costs of queries sent to backend data sources (DirectQuery vs Import)

[mmossel]

I know everything about Power BI licensing costs, however what I don't understand is costs involved when interaction with a dashboard, as Power BI sends queries to the backend data source in that case. So, if you use DirectQuery, are there costs involved in the backend? And if you were to use Import mode, are there no additional costs involved?

[v-yangliu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi  @mmossel ,

As far as I know, whether your data source is in the cloud or locally, the DQ connection mode will directly query the data source, which will affect the data source, and Import connection mode will query the data source when obtaining the latest data.

Data is stored on Azure. When querying, it will consume the resources of the entire server and will also affect Azure.

Best Regards,

Liu Yang

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[v-yangliu-msft]

Hi  @mmossel , 

The Dq connection mode extracts data directly from the data source when querying. Because DQ does not store any data, it sends the query to the back-end data source and converts the query into the language required by the back-end database. Therefore, in the query execution before, during and after, the data resides in its original source, so it will affect the back-end data source.

The Import connection mode is to load data from the data source into Power BI, and Power BI will cache the data you connect to to create a point-in-time snapshot of the data. All interactions and filters applied to the data will be done for this compression (provided by the Vertipaq storage engine) cache source, not the actual data source itself, but changes in the underlying data source will not be updated in the Dataset in real time, you need to view the data source, you still have to refresh the data in the latest data, which will import the complete data set again, and it will also affect the back-end data source.

This is the related document, you can view this content:

https://radacad.com/directquery-live-connection-or-import-data-tough-decision

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/desktop-directquery-about

https://www.programmersought.com/article/1657514050/

Best Regards,

Liu Yang

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[mmossel]

Hi @v-yangliu-msft, so wherever the datasoure is (Cloud/On-Prem), does sending a query to the backend incur costs (outside of Power BI)? For example, imagine the data source is stored on Azure. Does querying that data result in additional Azure costs on top of the storage costs?