Power BI Report Server Licensing Clarifications

[djpirra]

Hi everyone,

I am a little bit confused with all the information regarding the licensing of Power BI Report Server.

Currently I have a scenario where I cannot take advantages of cloud so we will focus only on on-premises licensing.

This is a BI architecture so we will be using a hosting company that provides the VMs for SQL Server with SPLA licenses (SQLSvrEntCore 2019 SNGL OLP 2Lic NL CoreLic Qlfd).

Will I need to request more of these licenses from the hosting provider to the cover the Power BI Report Server VM?

If so, are these licenses types ok to cover the PBIRS? If not, I need to request customer to aquire individual licenses for this and use BYOL? 

What is the licensing for UAT and DEV environments?

Regards,

LS

[FarhanAhmed]

Power BI Report Server License covers by 2 area

- Power BI Premium

- SQL Server EE with Software Assurance (SA)

Ref: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/report-server/compare-report-server-service

We’ve recently updated our licensing terms to allow SQL Server Enterprise customers with software assurance to deploy Power BI Report Server on Azure VM’s for production use by leveraging their Azure Hybrid Benefit.  For many customers, moving their internal servers to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings in the cloud represent the first step in their digital transformation.  By making this license benefit available, SQL customers can now move their entire environment to Azure with their existing licenses and reduce the operational costs associated with managing an on-premises data center. 

Ref: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/licensing-and-roadmap-update-for-power-bi-report-server/

I think, What you need is

- SQL Server License should be Enterprise Edition 

- Hosting of VMs should be done at Azure if you are planning PRIRS on Cloud VMs.

[djpirra]

Hi Farhan,

We will not be able to use Azure since there is no DC on the region.

The question was that the hosting company provides licenses with SA.. So I am assuming I have to aquire the correspondent SQL Server EE with SA for the Power BI Report Server machine (production only) and for UAT and DEV use the free?

Regards,

LS

[FarhanAhmed · Accepted solution]

Yes, you are probably right. If the hosting company providing licenses with SA then SQL Server EE should be enough to use PBIRS for production. Meanwhile, you can use a Trial version of PBIRS for DEV & UAT. 

Note: PBIRS trial version is valid for 180 Days only I think.