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Anonymous
Not applicable

Power BI Secured Connectivity

I am really thrilled to see the power of PowerBI as Self Service BI..My client is in Insurance domain working with Highly Confidential data for reporting. They have on-premise SQL Databases (Relational and Analytics). Need some insights on how it can establish secure connectivity with on-premise databases. This is will help business to take the advantage of Power BI. Appreciate if anyone from Micorosft can throw some light on this. Thanks!

6 REPLIES 6
Greg_Deckler
Super User
Super User

Probably the most secure route to go would be to install the Enterprise Gateway and use a Direct Query query to the on-premises database. See the Power BI Security post here: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-admin-power-bi-security/

 

Actually, I would argue that your data would be more secure if you stored it in the cloud in Azure SQL DB or Azure SQL as IaaS versus an on-premises data center, but I might be in the minority on that. Bottom line, Microsoft's cloud is more secure than just about anyone's data center, IMHO.


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Anonymous
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Thanks for your reply. No, the infrastructure and solution is already in place for the client. So we need to go for a solution that works with on-premise databases. We need to be sure on secure connectivity (like SSL) before we propose Power BI to the client. I will explore the link referred by you and get back to you with further queries.

Hi @Anonymous,

You can enable SSL encryption for your SQL Server instance following the instructions in this KB article, then connect to the SQL Server instance from Power BI Desktop. This way, communications between the Power BI Desktop and SQL Server are encrypted.

What you need to note is that you would need to copy SSL certificate for the SQL Server to the machine running Power BI Desktop and import it to Trusted Root Certification Authorities store. Also take a look at the server name in the SSL certificate and connect to SQL Server from Power BI Desktop using the same server name, otherwise you will get connectivity error.


Moreover, you are able to add SQL Server data source under gateway as long as you copy SSL certificate for the SQL Server to the machine running gateway and import it to Trusted Root Certification Authorities store. For more details, please take a look at this similar blog.


Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

Community Support Team _ Lydia Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
Anonymous
Not applicable

Many thanks Lydia. I was looking exactly for this options. Once the report is built with Power BI desktop by a particular user using secured connectivity over SSL, then what are the options we can have for sharing the reports. I assume that Power BI Services cannot be used in this instance for security concerns as its hosted in Cloud. Please note, all business users are in the same organization, so sharing internally will suffice. Appreciate if you can share your thoughts around this.

 

Regards,

Triparna Ray


@Anonymous wrote:

Many thanks Lydia. I was looking exactly for this options. Once the report is built with Power BI desktop by a particular user using secured connectivity over SSL, then what are the options we can have for sharing the reports. I assume that Power BI Services cannot be used in this instance for security concerns as its hosted in Cloud. Please note, all business users are in the same organization, so sharing internally will suffice. Appreciate if you can share your thoughts around this.

 

Regards,

Triparna Ray


Hi @Anonymous,

There are several methods  that you can use to share the reports to other users in your organization. You can publish the Power BI Desktop file to Power BI Service, create a dashboard and share the dashboard to other users. Or you can create a Power BI group or content pack to share the reports.

It depends on your busniess requirement to choose which method to share the reports, for more details about sharing reports, please review this article:https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-service-how-should-i-share-my-dashboard/.

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

Community Support Team _ Lydia Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
Anonymous
Not applicable

I am really thrilled to see the power of PowerBI as Self Service BI..My client is in Insurance domain working with Highly Confidential data for reporting. They have in-premise SQL Databases (Relational and Analytics). Need some insights on how it can establish secure connectivity (over SSL) with on-premise databases. This is will help business to take the advantage of Power BI. Appreciate if anyone from Micorosft can throw some light on this. Thanks!

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