Introduction and Context
Existing solutions
Before diving into this post’s primary topic let’s first address what was its predecessor, the Azure on-premises data gateway:
It was/is a compute-based entity that runs on Windows Server as a network intermediary connector connecting Power BI platform and other relevant services such as Power Apps, Power Automate, Azure Analysis Services, and Azure Logic Apps with your on-premises (and cloud) data services such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle etc. – the service is quite useful as it demystifies the networking challenges in direct connections to these data sources.
Here’s how such a setup would look like:
The setup above has pretty much become the de-facto standard these days to solve these kinds of challenges.
A compute-based resource with some limits
It does though present itself with new questions and new issues in hybrid and/or cloud computing environments:
- The setup requires its own compute support with High availability considerations taken care of in production environments.
- Software updates and installation staging must be considered as part of normal software update lifecycle mechanisms.
- It is a point of contention. If the organization also needs to connect to data sources that reside in both cloud and on-premises (quite common in complex, medium-to-large orgs) the setup will need to be duplicated or otherwise produce inefficient traffic patterns – here’s such a scenario:
This configuration is where we are essentially utilizing two VM cluster setups each for Cloud and on-premises data sources – an almost imposed choice if using the on-premises data gateway setup.
In addition to its technical, financial and operational considerations – the organization now needs to deal with disparate instances that deal with the same kind of challenge, the issue is further confounded on global operations and presents a cumbersome and inflexible setup.
The VNET Data Gateway: the optimum solution
What is the VNET Data Gateway?
Introduced in Q1 2024 by Microsoft, the Azure VNET data gateway comes to solve many of the problems and challenges that existed with on-premises data gateways whilst providing the same capabilities and removing the burden of management and operational inefficiencies the previous methodology introduced.
What tools do you need to get started?
The requirements of the VNET data gateway are:
A simple dedicated subnet that is used by the Microsoft-offered compute capability to connect to your resources, whether these are on-premises or in the cloud.
Necessary connectivity aspects toward your on-premises resources such VPN Site-To-Site and Azure Express route.
Licensing requirements – VNET data gateways require a Power BI Premium capacity license (A4 SKU or higher or any P SKU) or Fabric license to be used (any SKU) so that compute capacity can be assigned to the VNET data gateway either in single or HA/High performance scenarios
This is an example of a cloud-based VNET data gateway environment:
The benefits
Operationally and functionally simple setup – one entity deals with both kinds of connectivity.
You get to choose the compute capacity based on your licensing scope.
No operational or management considerations other than Power Platform configuration items to be set.
No updates or OS configuration and patching needed.
Faster performance in many scenarios as the Microsoft network backbone is used depending on the traffic pattern.
Conclusion
There is a range of options currently at our disposal about Power Platform toward on-premises resources such as databases – the VNET data gateway is a flexible and efficient choice which takes away the hassle and increased overhead of running your resources against Azure and Power Platform’s ever-changing landscape.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you would like more information on this or any other Azure-related topic! We’d be delighted to support you in this type of project and get started!
