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PL-900 Practice Question: A data analyst at a manufacturing company that…
You are a data analyst at a manufacturing company that uses Microsoft 365 and Power BI. The company has a Power BI tenant with Free, Pro, and Premium Per User (PPU) licenses. Your team has created a Power BI report that visualizes production line efficiency from a SQL Server database on-premises. The report is published to a workspace assigned to a PPU capacity. You need to ensure that all 50 users in the production department can view the report on their mobile devices, with data refreshing every 30 minutes. The users have a mix of Free and Pro licenses. The report uses DirectQuery mode to the on-premises SQL Server. You have configured an on-premises data gateway in personal mode. Users report that the report is slow and sometimes fails to load. What should you do to improve performance and reliability while meeting the refresh requirement?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often focus on licensing (Free vs. Pro vs. PPU) as the solution, overlooking the critical infrastructure issue of the gateway mode and cluster configuration for DirectQuery performance.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Switch the on-premises data gateway from personal mode to standard mode and add additional gateways to the cluster.
The report uses DirectQuery mode, which requires a standard (on-premises data gateway) mode to handle concurrent queries efficiently. Personal mode is limited to a single user and cannot scale to support 50 users, causing slow performance and failures. Adding additional gateways to a standard mode cluster distributes the query load, improving reliability and performance while maintaining the 30-minute refresh requirement via DirectQuery.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Move the report to a shared capacity and assign all users Pro licenses.
Why it's wrong here
Shared capacity has lower performance limits and is not necessary; PPU works fine with DirectQuery.
- ✗
Change the report from DirectQuery to Import mode and configure scheduled refresh every 30 minutes.
Why it's wrong here
DirectQuery cannot be changed to Import without redesign, and scheduled refresh does not apply to DirectQuery.
- ✗
Assign all users Premium Per User licenses to ensure they can view the report.
Why it's wrong here
While PPU licenses would work, the issue is not licensing but gateway configuration; Free users cannot access the workspace.
- ✓
Switch the on-premises data gateway from personal mode to standard mode and add additional gateways to the cluster.
Why this is correct
Standard mode gateways support multiple concurrent connections and improve performance for DirectQuery.
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