A Deep Dive Into The Power BI Direct Lake

The term storage mode in Power BI refers to how tables are stored and how queries will be sent to the data source. In Power BI desktop you can specify the storage mode on a per-table basis. It's important to understand how the different storage modes function and how they can be utilized to meet certain business requirements.

Power BI has had storage modes for quite some time, with Import being the best practice and default mode for the majority of projects.
With Microsoft Fabric, a new mode has been announced: Direct Lake mode.

How does that fit in? It's actually not really a storage mode (because it doesn’t store any data!), but more a connectivity mode.
What are the differences and similarities or the pros and cons to the old storage modes?
What Power BI or Fabric licenses do we need, to use Direct Lake mode?
What is Delta, Parquet and V-Ordering all about?

In this session we will deep dive into the Direct Lake mode and try to answer these questions.
This sessions is mainly aimed at Power BI developers, so anyone who works with Power BI Desktop, or people that want to get a better understanding of all the storage modes in Power BI. Some experience with Power BI (Desktop) is assumed, so that you have a basic understanding of how Power BI works.

After this session, participants will be able to: * Explain how Direct Lake works and how it differs from Import and DirectQuery. * Choose the right storage or connectivity mode based on performance, cost, and licensing. * Understand the role of Delta, Parquet, and V-Ordering in Direct Lake performance and design decisions.