PowerBI Desktop running on Windows Server, accessible via Azure Active Directory accounts?

[bsjut]

Hi everybody, 

I wonder if anybody has build this kind of setup before: We do a lot of reporting via PowerBI Desktopand we’d like to provide more powerful computing capabilities to users building reports.

I was looking into the possibilities of providing this via Windows Server 2012.

The goal is that users

• Can use their office365 logins to connect to the remote machine (remote desktop or remote app)
• Can access their Onedrive / o365 resources in conjunction with PowerBI desktop
• can securely logon / logoff.

We have a dedicated Windows Server 2012 running at OVH data centers, that could be leveraged.

I have looked into the Azure Active Directory capabilities and it should be possible to use the active directory in a cloud only mode. My ideal scenario is that I would be able to tie in the external Windows server into our Active Directory and then provding PowerBI Desktop for the users that can connect via Remote Desktop or run PowerBI Desktop as a remote app. 

I'm happy to have also consultants contacting me about this and we'll pay by the hour for screensharing consulting.

[v-yuezhe-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @bsjut,

Based on your description, it seems that you want to use Azure Active Directory account to access on-premises resources.

In my opinion, the issue is more related to Azure Active Directory and Windows Server, I would recommend you post the question in the Azure Active Directory forum to get dedicated support. You can also check if the following articles are suitable for your scenario .

Single Sign-On to on-premises resources from Azure AD joined when Onprem
Understanding Office 365 identity and Azure Active Directory

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang