From PowerBI desktop to PowerBI Report Server

Hi dsutt519 - Understand the confusion. There are two primary report types, Paginated "RDL" reports which support common relational sources and OLEDB/ODBC connections, and PowerBI "PBIX" reports which always require an AS tabular model. In PowerBI desktop and PowerBI.com there is an instance of a tabular model being hosted "secretly" for you. RDL's are great for paged-break document style reports, PBIX are great for more on-screen and analytical style reports. The SSRS product offers RDL reports, PBI Report Server offers BOTH RDL and PBIX reports.

To your question why offer PBI Report Server with only AS connections, it's was a matter of time. We were able to complete and offer PBI-RS with only AS connections much earlier to customers who were very eager to get started or already have AS data models. Support for additional data sources is still under development and should be coming in an future release of PBI Report Server. Similarly, as more support is added to PBI Report Server, it will have more symmetry and alignment with the rest of the PBI products.