Power BI Direct Lake is an innovative semantic model feature designed for the analysis of extensive data volumes in Power BI. It operates by directly loading parquet-formatted files from a data lake, eliminating the need to query a Lakehouse or Warehouse endpoint or to import or replicate data into a Power BI model. This approach streamlines the data analysis process, making it more efficient and effective.
Understanding Direct Lake
Direct Lake is a fast-path to load the data from the lake straight into the Power BI engine, ready for analysis. It essentially uses the same concept as the import mode. Because there’s no explicit import process, it’s possible to pick up any changes at the data source as they occur, combining the advantages of both DirectQuery and import modes while avoiding their disadvantages.
Unlike DirectQuery, there is no translation from DAX or MDX to other query languages or query execution on other database systems, yielding performance similar to import mode. Direct Lake mode can be the ideal choice for analyzing very large models and models with frequent updates at the data source.
Security in Direct Lake
Direct Lake also supports row-level security and object-level security so users only see the data they have permission to see. This ensures that your data is not only accessible but also secure.
Prerequisites for Using Direct Lake
Direct Lake is supported on Power BI Premium P and Microsoft Fabric F SKUs only. It’s not supported on Power BI Pro, Premium Per User, or Power BI Embedded A/EM SKUs.
Before using Direct Lake, you must provision a Lakehouse (or a Warehouse) with one or more Delta tables in a workspace hosted on a supported Power BI or Microsoft Fabric capacity. The Lakehouse is required because it provides the storage location for your parquet-formatted files in OneLake. The Lakehouse also provides an access point to launch the Web modeling feature to create a Direct Lake model.
As part of provisioning a Lakehouse, a SQL endpoint for SQL querying and a default model for reporting are created and updated with any tables added to the Lakehouse.
Conclusion
Direct Lake is a powerful feature in Power BI that allows for efficient and effective data analysis. By understanding its workings and benefits, you can leverage its capabilities to enhance your data analysis and reporting processes. Remember, the choice of data storage mode in Power BI depends on your specific requirements and use cases. It’s important to understand these differences to make the most of Power BI’s capabilities.