Power BI Direct Lake: Understanding Parquet, Delta, and Refreshes

Video Description 📺

Direct lake with Power BI slows data to stay up to date without needing lengthy refreshes, such as in import mode. This is possible due to OneLake’s underlying storage mode, the Delta format. While keeping data up to date is helpful, sometimes we may need to delay updating our models, such as when we have lengthy ETL processes, or when different tables finish updating at different times. In this video, we will understand how a direct lake mode can use a refresh to control when data is updated. To understand how this works, we will first need to understand parquet, delta, and refresh processes.