Power BI Report Server Implementation

[Raghda_Alshehhi]

I work for a highly regulated orgnization, and it's IT policy rules prevent us from ever having to let our data leave our premises. 

We understand that 

Power BI Report Server is available via:

 Power BI Premium

SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance only. 

At this stage, we don't have much knowlwdge about this product, but we do have SQL server in house

In this case 

- Why can i know if my orgnization has software assurance, I've asked our internal IT team and still got no answer

- What are the software and Hardware requirments that we need to keep in mind? (Most impoertant is the data can not go cloud or online)

- Do i need a Pro/Premium for publising  reports? Can Admin  publsh a dashboard with Report Server,? Do my viewers ( i mean management) need a license too? Is there is a risk to give many users with license (we said we can buy up to 15 licenses) 

- What is a gateway? why i need it if i connect to excel or SQL SERVER?

- With the normal PB service, Adminstration is done in the workspace, how about the on prem solution? 

- On which hardware is it going to be installed (Existing IT Network servers or operational network)?

- Is it just 1 server license that is required or are there CALs as well (Client Access License)?

- Do we have requirement for any additional hardware?

- What type of support is expected from our IT department? who needs  to manage the SQL server and the Power BI server from administrative point of view?

- Where is the data taken from and where is will be stored after createing the reports 

- Can we have one report created for diffrent access level . e.g user one needs pagex graphs, user 2 needs page 2 graphs

I apologiza for asking so many questions, but we are still very confused with this solution, and need more clarity 

[Raghda_Alshehhi]

Thank you for covering all my questions

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

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@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- Why can i know if my orgnization has software assurance, I've asked our internal IT team and still got no answer

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Only your IT department or your Microsoft Account manager could answer this question. Software Assurance is part of an Enterprise agreement with Microsoft. There is no difference in the installed software

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- What are the software and Hardware requirments that we need to keep in mind? (Most impoertant is the data can not go cloud or online)

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The hardware depends on the number of concurrent users and the types of reports and the data sizes. 

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- Do i need a Pro/Premium for publising  reports? Can Admin  publsh a dashboard with Report Server,? Do my viewers ( i mean management) need a license too? Is there is a risk to give many users with license (we said we can buy up to 15 licenses) 

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Anyone publishing reports needs a Pro license. Viewers do not need a license.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- What is a gateway? why i need it if i connect to excel or SQL SERVER?

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A gateway is only needed if you are connecting on-prem data with the Power BI cloud service so they are not needed for Power BI Report Server.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- With the normal PB service, Adminstration is done in the workspace, how about the on prem solution? 

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It's mainly done in the Report Server web portal and there are a few advanced settings that can be changed from SQL Server Management Studio.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- On which hardware is it going to be installed (Existing IT Network servers or operational network)?

On what ever hardware you like. It's installed on-prem so your company chooses where to install it.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- Is it just 1 server license that is required or are there CALs as well (Client Access License)?

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It's 1 server license, but the license is for a set number of cores and if you need more computing power you can purchase additional core licenses. Viewers do not need CALs, but report publishers need a Power BI Pro license.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- Do we have requirement for any additional hardware?

Ideally you should run Report Server on it's own server. This may be a separate physical server or just a VM.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- What type of support is expected from our IT department? who needs  to manage the SQL server and the Power BI server from administrative point of view?

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You would need the full support of your IT department. They would need to manage the server and probably the Power BI Report Server too. For Report Server these are totally on-prem so nothing is managed by Microsoft.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- Where is the data taken from and where is will be stored after createing the reports 

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It's taken from what ever source systems you connect to. When you refresh the reports the data will be stored in the Report Server SQL Server database.

@Raghda_Alshehhi wrote:

- Can we have one report created for diffrent access level . e.g user one needs pagex graphs, user 2 needs page 2 graphs

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No you currently would need to create these as 2 separate reports. There is no page level targetting or security.