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Understanding Virtual Network Data Gateways in Power Platform

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Power Apps
Power BI
tech

Introduction

When connecting to Azure resources from Power BI or Power Apps dataflows, those Azure resources must reside on a public network. However, exposing SQL Database or Blob Storage to a public network is generally not realistic from a security perspective. It is common practice to keep SQL Database or Blob Storage contained within a Virtual Network (VNet) and restrict access to only necessary resources. While it is possible to use an on-premises data gateway to access them, this requires setting up a virtual machine as a gateway, which can be cumbersome.

Given this situation, a new method called the virtual network data gateway is now available in preview. This allows you to access a virtual network without the need to set up a dedicated gateway. In short, it is the Power Platform version of VNet integration.

Basic information is summarized in the Microsoft documentation.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/data-integration/vnet/overview?WT.mc_id=M365-MVP-5002941

Execution Steps

In this article, I will introduce the steps to connect from a dataflow to Blob Storage inside a virtual network. First, create the Blob Storage that will be connected to the virtual network.

Register Microsoft.PowerPlatform as a resource provider for the Azure subscription where the Blob Storage was created.

Add Microsoft.PowerPlatform/vnetaccesslinks as a subnet delegation to an unused subnet in the virtual network.

In the Power Platform admin center, go to Data (preview) - Virtual network gateways and click Create virtual network data gateway. Select the subnet where you just specified the delegation and click Save.

Select Azure Blob Storage as the data source from the dataflow. You will now be able to select the virtual network gateway you created under Data gateway.

Conclusion

After actually trying this out, there are a few points to note:

  • Virtual network gateways can only be used with Power BI and Power Apps dataflows.
  • They cannot be used as connectors for Power Apps or Power Automate.
  • For Power BI, this is only available with Power BI Premium.
  • The Power Platform tenant and Azure must be in the same tenant.
  • The user creating the virtual network gateway must have access permissions to the Azure resources.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/data-integration/vnet/use-data-gateways-sources-power-bi?WT.mc_id=M365-MVP-5002941

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