An on-premises data gateway keeps SSAS tabular data live in the Power BI service

PL-300 By islever Editorial Last updated Sep 25, 2026

Get or connect to data

Short answer

C The on-premises data gateway carries the live SSAS queries so service consumers always see current data.

Question

You create a report by using Microsoft Power BI Desktop. The report uses data from a Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) tabular model located on your company's internal network. You plan to publish the report to the Power BI Service. What should you implement to ensure that users who consume the report from the Power BI Service have the most up-to-date data from the tabular model?

a scheduled refresh of the semantic model
an OData feed
an On-premises data gateway Correct Answer
a subscription

Key Takeaways

Live connections to SSAS tabular models query the on-premises server in real time — from the cloud that traffic flows through an on-premises data gateway, keeping service consumers on the freshest data with no import lag.

A Desktop report reads from an SSAS tabular model on the company's internal network, and service consumers must see the most up-to-date data after the report is published to the Power BI service.

Common mistake: Scheduling refreshes — a live connection never imports data, so there is nothing to schedule; the gateway is what makes the real-time query path reachable from the service.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

The report uses a live connection to the internal SSAS tabular model, so all queries execute against that server at view time — data is as current as the model itself. The Power BI service reaches on-premises servers through the on-premises data gateway (C), which Microsoft requires for any cloud-to-internal-network connection; with the gateway in place, service consumers always read the model's latest data.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

A scheduled refresh (A) applies to import-mode models that copy data into Power BI — the live connection has no imported data to refresh, and scheduling would still not achieve continuous up-to-dateness. An OData feed (B) is a different connectivity mechanism to expose data as an endpoint, unrelated to reaching an internal SSAS server. A subscription (D) emails report snapshots on a schedule — a distribution feature that actually guarantees stale content rather than freshness.

Community Comment Notes

Commenters answer C uniformly, with one noting this matches the standard pattern for internal-network Analysis Services sources. The gateway is the only listed component that bridges the Power BI service to the company network.

Official Reference

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/desktop-analysis-services-tabular-data

This link opens the official vendor documentation in a new tab.

Community Votes

100%

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

Discussion 3 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 3

rcaliandro 👍 8 Answered C

Similar to a previous question. C is the correct answer
jaume 👍 1 Answered C

This is the same as Question 22 also in topic 4, glad to see it's the same proposed solution
desibaby09 👍 2 Answered C

C final and ONLY answer

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