Connecting a Netezza DB to Power BI

While there isn't a native connection to Netezza in PowerBI, here is an end around that you can use to successfully connect the two systems. Start by using the R script data source function - you will need a local version of R installed on your box for this to work. Make sure you have the R library nzr installed into the local R home directory.

Once that is set up you can use a piece of R code to query Netezza tables back into dataframes in R which will then be loaded to PowerBI. Here is an exampe snippet of the R code required:

#start R code #

require(nzr) 

#Connect to Netezza Instance#

nzConnect("username","password","Netezza IP", force = TRUE)

#define SQL Query#

call <- paste("SQL Query")

#Put SQL Results into dataframe#

data <- nzQuery(call)

Once you run the R script you will be prompted to choose the dataframes you would like to load to PowerBI and you should be good to go. Little bit kludgy but it is a workaround until that connection is built out by MS.

Cheers!