Incremental refresh reduces gateway traffic by refreshing only new partitions

PL-300 By islever Editorial Last updated

Transform and load the data

Short answer

A Yes, incremental refresh transfers only recent partitions through the gateway instead of the full dataset.

Question

Note: This question is part of a series of questions that present the same scenario. Each question in the series contains a unique solution that might meet the stated goals. Some question sets might have more than one correct solution, while others might not have a correct solution. After you answer a question in this section, you will NOT be able to return to it. As a result, these questions will not appear in the review screen. You have an on-premises data gateway. You need to reduce the amount of data sent through the gateway by semantic models that run in import storage mode. Solution: You configure incremental refresh. Does this meet the goal?
  1. Yes Correct Answer
  2. No

Key Takeaways

Incremental refresh partitions history and refreshes only the recent window on each cycle — the bulk of historical data never crosses the gateway again after its first load.

In the on-premises gateway scenario, the proposed solution configures incremental refresh on semantic models running in Import storage mode to cut the data sent through the gateway.

Common mistake: Lumping incremental refresh with the rejected aggregations solution — aggregations summarize after transfer, while incremental refresh genuinely shrinks per-refresh transfer by skipping unchanged history.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

Incremental refresh divides a table into partitions by a range defined with RangeStart and RangeEnd parameters and, on each refresh cycle, processes only the partitions in the most recent window (plus an optional archive window). For an Import-mode model on an on-premises gateway, each refresh then transfers only the new and changed recent data instead of the entire historical dataset, directly reducing the amount of data sent through the gateway. The solution meets the goal.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

Answering No would conflate this with the earlier rejected solution of model-level aggregations. Aggregations reduce query-time work, but incremental refresh changes the refresh itself: the historical partitions are simply not reprocessed, so the gateway transfer per refresh is genuinely smaller. Nothing in the scenario prevents configuring incremental refresh policies on the Import models.

Community Comment Notes

Every comment supports Yes, with one explaining that only the variable part of the data set by parameters refreshes and the whole dataset is no longer reloaded. Another stresses that incremental reload reduces the workload across processing and transfer alike.

Official Reference

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-overview

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Community Votes

A
100%

100% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Discussion 6 contributions

Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.

From public community threads 6

  1. Rob_vd_Brink 👍 3
    I think using incremental reloads DOES reduce the amount of data sent through the gateway, so option A
  2. f07fa5c 👍 3 Answered A
    Incremental reloads do reduce the workload
  3. ec338ed 👍 2 Answered A
    Incremental refresh allows you to load only new or changed data, rather than refreshing the entire dataset. This can significantly reduce the amount of data that needs to be processed and transferred, especially in large datasets.
  4. jaume 👍 2 Answered A
    Incremental refresh would only refresh the "variable" part of the data (set using parameters) and would reduce the traffic not all the entire dataset would be refreshed
  5. LuluSkyy 👍 2
    The correct answer should be A. Incremental refresh refreshes the latest data
Show 1 more comment
  1. amiruladliroslibin 👍 1 Answered A
    should be A

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