Forum Discussion
Run Power BI Desktop on Azure Virtual Machine?
Hello Power BI Community, I love Power BI. I love it so much that I made a massive model that bogs down my desktop when I attempt to refresh my data model. Basically, I connect to data saved on my laptop and then refresh the model and it takes forever, using up all my CPU and RAM. My IT department is not helpful at all. Power BI is not the supported BI tool, so I'm on an island.
I've been playing around with Azure and have been able to upload files to Blob storage and then connect to them via Power BI desktop. Connecting is a breeze but I am left with the issue of refreshing my data model using my laptop's resources. Is it possible to set up an Azure Virtual Machine with more computing power to handle the refresh load?
In addition, I am hoping that I could share my "owner" status with my files and virtual Azure Virtual Machine with someone who could refresh the data on my behalf if I ever want to go on vacation.
Thank you!
7 Replies
Was able to spin up a virtual machine using the Azure free trial. I installed Power BI desktop and on-pre gateway. Connected to Azure Blob Store, refreshed the model, and published to my workspace. However the next day I was not able to access my VM due to some issue with the Network Security Groups. Will need to bring in my infrastructure team for that one. Now I just need to see if I transfer scheduled files from an SFTP directory to my Azure data store. Prior to this project I didn't really have an understanding of how Azure works. I am amazed at its capability and look forward to learning more.
Anonymous
I am facing the similar issue.
Did you get any good experience on Azure Virtual Desktop?
You can set-up a Windows Virtual Machine on Azure, Google Cloud or AWS. Then you install and run Power BI on that Virtual Machine. Finally, install Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac on each device to give your team access to that VM.
To know more I would recommend to visit Azure Managed Services to get more knowledge and better understanding about Azure services. In addition to this know more about azure database migration service
Best Regards
Thanks for your info. I'm facing same issue and same thoughts about creating a super vm with an on premises gateway to handle my powerbi reports.
Can you/anyone share more experiences and best practices to do it? Azure, AWS, ... Costs, specs of the machine to create,...
thanks!
Here is my experience with VM:
Hope it helps
Michael
Anonymous,
You may take a look at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-how-to-collaborate-distribute-dashboards-reports.
You could install and run Power BI on a Virtual Machine, then remote in to that Azure Virtual Machine.
Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/virtual-machines/
