Importing big data from Application insights to PowerBI

Question

I want to use the analytic data from my app-insights (billions of rows) in PowerBI. I read Microsoft documentation but the more I've read, the more confused I've got.

For example I've found this page which has a "Deprecated" sign on top of it and says to check export analytic query functionality

So here are my questions:

1. The analytic functionality seems as if it is exporting the results of one query to the power Bi. What happens when you setup scheduled refresh?

   • So basically, does it keep the old data as well? Because app-insight keeps the data only for 90 days if not, how can I do it? I need to be able to compare data for some years.

2. Does the PowerBi host the data or just the reports that you create for that? (I sound stupid in a way, but I couldn't find the answer)

3. I've set up continues export on app-insights. How should I set the powerBi to read from blobs?

Answer 1

I can answer some of your questions.

1 - When you schedule a refresh, a new dataset is retrieved from AI. The old data is gone.

2 - Powerbi does not host the data when using AI analytics queries as a source, the report does that.

3 - As you can see in the docs you can add a azure storage blob datasource easily. Just use the Get Data option and select Azure Storage Blob

Furthermore:

I need to be able to compare data for some years.

You might want to generate one or more readmodels for your reporting as having to read potentially gigabytes of data from storage is not very efficient. You could use Azure Data Factory and / or Azure Data Lake Analytics to prepare the data for you by transforming and aggregate the data stored in blobs by the continuous export of AI.