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PowerBiFun
Frequent Visitor

Power BI Gateway Installation Best Practice

Hello,

I am learning Power BI data gateway stuff. What's the best practice for data gateway installation in terms of on which server I should install it? I am evaluating to install data gateway on the same server where I have on-premise SQL server installed. The SQL server is dedicated for Power BI stuff.  What's the pros and cons of installing data gateway and SQL server on the same server?

Thanks,

 

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS
KHorseman
Community Champion
Community Champion

It depends on how your organization is set up. In my case, I have to access 2 different servers, both on the same network as the rest of the company computers, so I have a box on my desk dedicated to report services, on which I've installed our gateway. It has no trouble accessing any of the several databases on our network without being on the same server as them. The main advantage is maintenance of the gateway. If I need to do a restart or something, I don't need to do anything that might interfere with the server.

 

On the other hand, we have another "on-premise" server that is actually hosted by a different company, and in that case we have no choice but to host the gateway on that server. It's an immense pain, but the word is that we're moving off that server next month. Fingers crossed.

 

By the way, when you run the installer for the gateway, make sure you "run as administrator" so that the gateway runs as a service instead of an application. That way you don't have to actually log on and crank the thing up every morning. As long as the machine is running, so is the gateway.





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@PowerBiFunI'm using Gateway for many years and we installed Gateway on seperate box, we installed  on a box which is running our ETL package. Originally there were bit of challenges with gateway and it was not stable, like upgrade an all that stuff was bit clunky, since it is much better I don't see an issue to keep it on the same sql server., but we still kept on seperate box so that in case of any upgrade issue, we don't have to restart our sql server. Although as a policy we try to keep production environment on seperate box.

 

Hope it is helpful!



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5 REPLIES 5
Conarl_on_BI
Helper III
Helper III

@PowerBiFun,

There different options in deploying a gateway and the scenario for which you intend to use the gateway contribute to how you deploy it. I would suggest you start from here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-gateway-getting-started just to understand the basic requirements then scale based on your specific requirements.

For example the requirements for a personal gateway would be different from that of an enterprise gateway.

Then again if you're using the gateway in a direct query for large volume of datasets requirements would be different again.

 

Thanks,

Conarl_On_BI

KHorseman
Community Champion
Community Champion

It depends on how your organization is set up. In my case, I have to access 2 different servers, both on the same network as the rest of the company computers, so I have a box on my desk dedicated to report services, on which I've installed our gateway. It has no trouble accessing any of the several databases on our network without being on the same server as them. The main advantage is maintenance of the gateway. If I need to do a restart or something, I don't need to do anything that might interfere with the server.

 

On the other hand, we have another "on-premise" server that is actually hosted by a different company, and in that case we have no choice but to host the gateway on that server. It's an immense pain, but the word is that we're moving off that server next month. Fingers crossed.

 

By the way, when you run the installer for the gateway, make sure you "run as administrator" so that the gateway runs as a service instead of an application. That way you don't have to actually log on and crank the thing up every morning. As long as the machine is running, so is the gateway.





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Proud to be a Super User!




Thanks @KHorseman! Our situation is that we will have an on premise SQL server, SQLPBI, acting as the dedicated data source for Power BI reports/dashboards. Any other on-premise SQL data will be loaded to SQLPBI. I am trying to decide if we should install data gateway on the sql server, SQLPBI, or on a totally separated server. 

@PowerBiFunI'm using Gateway for many years and we installed Gateway on seperate box, we installed  on a box which is running our ETL package. Originally there were bit of challenges with gateway and it was not stable, like upgrade an all that stuff was bit clunky, since it is much better I don't see an issue to keep it on the same sql server., but we still kept on seperate box so that in case of any upgrade issue, we don't have to restart our sql server. Although as a policy we try to keep production environment on seperate box.

 

Hope it is helpful!



Subscribe to the @PowerBIHowTo YT channel for an upcoming video on List and Record functions in Power Query!!

Learn Power BI and Fabric - subscribe to our YT channel - Click here: @PowerBIHowTo

If my solution proved useful, I'd be delighted to receive Kudos. When you put effort into asking a question, it's equally thoughtful to acknowledge and give Kudos to the individual who helped you solve the problem. It's a small gesture that shows appreciation and encouragement! ❤


Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution. Proud to be a Super User! Appreciate your Kudos 🙂
Feel free to email me with any of your BI needs.

@PowerBiFunit sounds like you could probably go with my company's setup. As long as your server is on your domain you should be fine. Just install the gateway on a dedicated separate box that you can keep on at all times and everything should be fine. The only cases I know of that would require installing it on the server itself are cases where the server is off-network from the rest of the company, like a hosted solution of some sort.





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