Leveraging Direct Lake

Historically, Power BI had two semantic model modes, Import and DirectQuery. With import mode, data is ingested from source systems into tables within an Analysis Services semantic model. With DirectQuery, the semantic model dynamically queries source systems for data when needed. Many have often included live connections as a third semantic model mode. However, this is technically incorrect as live connections simply create a connection between a report and an existing semantic model and are thus not a semantic model mode in and of itself. Microsoft later introduced the Composite semantic model mode, which allows Import mode and DirectQuery mode to be combined within a single semantic model.

In addition to semantic model modes, Power BI also has storage modes for tables within the semantic model. Naturally, import mode semantic models use a table storage mode of import and DirectQuery semantic models use a table storage mode of DirectQuery. When composite...