Single Sign-On announced for connecting to data sources from Power BI Service

Microsoft has announced Single Sign-On (SSO) mode from Power BI, leveraging Kerberos, for connecting to select data sources using DirectQuery. 

As Microsoft Senior Program Manager, Power BI Miguel Llopis described on the company's Power BI blog, each user will see precisely the data for which he or she has permissions in an underlying data source, without shared data caching across different users.

As it is, when users interact with a DirectQuery report in the Power BI Service, such operations as cross-filter, slice, sorting, and report editing can result in live queries against the underlying on-premises data source.  If single sign-on is configured for the data source, queries execute under the identity of the user who is interacting with Power BI (i.e., through the web experience or Power BI mobile apps).

As Llopis describes, SSO requires the latest On-premises data gateway release bits to be installed. The SSO option is configured under "Advanced Options" in the Data Source registration page for On-premises data gateway sources (see graphic).

More details are available from this Power BI documentation article, which includes this graphic three-step description of the three steps that occur in running a query with SSO.

 At present, Single Sign-On is available for these data sources:

• SQL Server
• Teradata
• SAP HANA

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