Connecting Power BI to a remotely hosted SQL Server Database

[JK-BriteSItes]

Need some help and advice please. How do we connect Power BI to an SQL Database that is hosted remotely?

Having contacted the company which hosts the database, they have asked for a fixed and static IP Address and Port Number in order to help set things up. When running a Power BI Report in Desktop, we are able to see the IP Address and Port Number by using DAX studio. The IP Address is static, but each instance of the Report generates a dynamic and different port number; so it appears we are unable to provide these details to the hosting company.

Once a report is published from Desktop to Service, how do we set things up so that users of the report have a live link to the database that is hosted remotely please?

As an aside, when we have also contacted the company who developed the database (not the compaby hosting the database) they have suggested linking via ODBC connection - is this a potential solution?

Any help and advice would be hugely appreciated and thank you.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @JK-BriteSItes ,

You can refer the content in the following links to achieve it:

How to get data from SQL Server from an external server

Connect to remote server via VPN

Best Regards