When is gateway needed?

[coneslager]

From what I was reading, if you have a public datasource then the gateway is not needed.   I am pulling database from a sql server that is hosted on a vm in azure and it is not behind my firewall.  When I try to refersh the dataset, I get the "gateway is not configured" message.  Is sql server always assumed to be a private connection and need a gateway.

[ashishrj]

@coneslager Gateway is required for on-prem data sources like flat files, on-prem databases and not for online data sources. Even SQL Server hosted in Azure VM does not require gateway. I have few reports getting data from Azure VM and refresh works fine without any gateway installed. 

[coneslager]

That is my understanding of how it should work which is why I was surprised when I did a refresh on the dataset and got the personal gateway configuration message.

On your azure vm, is you firewall wide open?  Did you make any configuration changes?

Just to clarify, you are on a windows vm running sql server, not azure sql which is public.

[kazlik]

What options or configurations did you set to get your Azure VM with SQL database to refresh without using a gateway?