Power BI Report Server & Power BI Service (Cloud) Comparison
As we investigate the feasibility of Power BI Service, the following questions, answers (from Blue Granite), and resources are being compiled:
- Does Microsoft have a HECVAT form we could review? (Requested from Microsoft 6/19/19)
No, they do not. I have sent it to them, but they have not indicated that they will be filling it out.
- we will need to consider whether new types & volumes of data would be sent to their reporting service. If so, does our agreement already cover such data?
- we'll need to understand the lifecycle of this data in the Microsoft cloud, and how we might audit its access (Info below):
Auditing capabilities: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-admin-auditing & report usage metrics: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-usage-metrics
- presumably the mechanism for sending the data is well secured and documented, and our admins understand well this mechanism
From Blue Granite: It really depends on the type of assets you intend on creating (i.e. import a copy of the data, Live connection to SSAS, or DirectQuery to supported database). Actual rows of data are only stored in the PBI Service if you are using imported datasets, which are encrypted when at rest, but decrypted and stored in-memory (all within the cloud) while being used.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/whitepaper-powerbi-security
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-gateway-getting-started
- Accessing PBIS and PBIRS (all from Blue Granite):
Power BI Report Server (PBIRS)
- You own Power BI Report Server via your SQL Server Enterprise Software Assurance (SA) agreement
- Technically, your Power BI developers also need to have a Power BI Pro license ($10 a month/per user)
- However, this is really an honor system, to my knowledge, Microsoft does not regularly audit this
- I do not recommend this, but I am aware of a few of our clients that use PBIRS who have not purchased Power BI Pro licenses for their developers
- I blogged about this last year, but the content is still applicable today - https://www.blue-granite.com/blog/power-bi-report-server-revisited
Power BI Service - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-features-license-type
- Two types of licensing:
- Per user
- By Capacity
- Per User
- Pro Users ($10 a month)
- Full Power BI Service features in the shared tenant
- Any user who needs to be able to collaborate with others (even read-only consumers) need to have a Pro license
- Free Users
- No collaboration capabilities whatsoever!
- Basically just a sandbox for individual analysis
- Cannot share with colleagues, content cannot be shared with them
- By Capacity (i.e. Power BI Premium)
- When purchasing Power BI Premium capacity, you are buying dedicated space in Microsoft’s cloud for only your organization
- Rather than licensing individual users, you assign App Workspaces to a premium capacity
This is where it gets confusing for most people:
- If you purchase Power BI Premium capacity, your read-only users do not need Pro licenses
- Instead, Free Users are able to view content shared with them, but only if that content resides in premium capacity
- Your Power BI developers still need Pro Licenses, even if they are publishing their content to a workspace within premium capacity
The lowest Power BI Premium tier is $5,000/month, so unless you have more than 500 report users, it is more cost-effective to purchase individual Pro licenses for everyone, even if they are only a read-only consumer.
Cost aside, there are a lot more features available in Power BI Premium such as:
- Paginated (SSRS) reports in the service
- More dataset refreshes throughout the day (48 vs 8/day with Pro)
- Incremental refreshes
One other option for read-only accessing PBIS reports/dashboards is Power BI Embedded:
If that is the ultimate use-case (embedding pre-built reports for read-only user), then Power BI Embedded is probably worth exploring. I have not worked with PBI Embedded, so I will have to do some research for you there. However, I do know that the pricing is completely different. You do not need PRO licenses for read-only consumers in this scenario, but you are looking at hourly pricing based on the type of Node you select.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/power-bi-embedded/