A few weeks ago, I blogged about my experiences with the Analysis Services Connector in the article Issues (& solutions) with Power BI Analysis Services Connector. Because the Enterprise Gateway was still in preview back then, I didn't want to use that in production yet. Meanwhile the Enterprise Gateway has been released, so it's time to update my findings.

Install Procedure

Installing the Power BI Enterprise Gateway just works. Install wizard finishes, and presents this screen:

However, signing in doesn't work in my environment. The reason is twofold:

1. Enterprise Gateway is still installed using a local account (I need a corporate Active Directory-account in order to have internet access)
2. Enterprise Gateway still doesn't use global proxy settings

Ergo: you have to click CANCEL here and exit the wizard. After altering these settings, you can resume the procedure.

IMHO here is a HUGE difference in comparison to the Analysis Services Connector: this time the default settings as well as configuration options of proxy settings are documented. Yay 🙂

• Service account: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-gateway-enterprise/#service-account
• Proxy settings: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-gateway-enterprise-tshoot/#configuration

The proxy settings are somewhat hidden, but are contained in the following sentence:

This could also be due to proxy configuration issues. The user interface does now allow for proxy configuration. You would need to modify the enterprisegatewayconfigurator.exe.config with the correct proxy information.

IMHO this is an improvement, basically addressing my issues I noticed when using the Analysis Services Connector: this time I won't have to go around altering all '.config'-files in order to test which ones have to change.

After the proxy- and service account settings are set up[ref]basically the same steps as I described my post 'Issues (& solutions) with Power BI Analysis Services Connector'[/ref], you can start the configuration procedure by starting 'Power BI Enterprise Gateway' from the start menu.

Starting 'Power BI Enterprise Gateway' will bring up the wizard we canceled earlier on - this time with a working login.

Updates to other issues

In my original issues / solutions post about Analysis Services Connector, I also mentioned the following issues:

• ASC service is still called 'Data Management Gateway'. This one is fixed! The new service is called 'Power BI Enterprise Gateway', and runs happily beside the Analysis Services Connector.
• Setup wizard crashes when using federated AD account (as long as you don't enable forms authentication for intranet on your ADFS server). Not tested yet. Personally, I don't expect this has changed: as far as I can see, Forms Authentication is still used within the wizard.

Conclusion

With the Power BI Enterprise Gateway, few improvements have been made, addressing almost all issues I blogged about earlier - either by documenting the right way to handle exceptions (like proxy servers / service accounts), or by updates to the application (like the service name, which was a minor issue anyway).

Overall, the ease of use has improved greatly - and because of the documentation covering more of the cases I ran into with Analysis Services Connector it feels more mature in itself.