General architectural guidance
This section presents general architectural items for using Power BI.
Capacities
There are different capacities for Power BI architecture. They can be grouped under two categories – shared and dedicated:
- Shared capacity: Power BI Pro license or Premium Per User (PPU) license not in a tenant with a Premium or Fabric capacity
- Dedicated: Premium, Fabric, and Embedded capacities purchased through a subscription
Shared capacities
The Power BI Pro and PPU licenses allow individuals to publish datasets and reports to shared capacity. You share the capacity with other Pro and PPU users. There is no administration for controlling or adjusting the resources for your reports and datasets. Limits for dataset sizes to import as well as the number of refreshes (8) are tighter than dedicated capacity. To ensure everyone on shared capacity plays together, there are certain limits and throttling done behind the scenes.