Azure data factory data flow task cannot take on prem as source

Question

Hey, I am having trouble in creating a Data Flows task which uses an on-prem source. Is this not possible in the Preview version?

I have created a self hosted IR to connect ADF to my laptop, and that is what I want to use. In the pic below I am trying to create a dataset off self hosted IR. It works great in Copy task but for Data Flows it is greyed out.

Answer 1

If your goal is to use visual data transformations in ADF using Mapping Data Flows with on-prem data, then build a pipeline with a Copy Activity first. Use the Self-Hosted Integration Runtime with the Copy Activity to stage your data in Blob Store. Then add a subsequent Execute Data Flow activity to transform that data.

I made video on how to do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN-4v0e7UIs

Answer 2

For this question, I asked Azure support for help and they replied me with the answer:

Answer:

This means on-premise SQL server is not supported as dataset in data flow in current stage.

Screen shot:

Update:

Data flow now only support Azure IR so it doesn’t support on-premise dataset. Refer to Integration runtime types.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Reproduce your issue on my side ,however nothing about this feature is claimed on the official document. As you can see everywhere about data flow cliams that:

You could submit any voice here:

Also found a feedback for data flow in ADF for your reference.If you need push the progress of it,you could vote up it. Also,i would suggest you referring to the comments in the link:

For access to the 80+ ADF connectors, use Copy Activity to stage data for transformation.

Data Flows will access data in your lake (Blob, ADB, ADW, ADLS) for transformation.

Think of Copy Activity as your data heavy-lifting activity and Data Flow as your data transformation engine.