Forum Discussion
Power BI Report Server Licensing
I plan to upgrade from SQL Server Standard 2008 to SQL Server Standard 2016 later this year. If I want to use Power BI Report Server do I have to buy a Power BI Premium license, or can I download and run Power BI Report Server alongside or as a replacement for SSRS based on the licenses I purchase for SQL Server Standard 2016
You have two options.
You can buy Power BI Premium, this allows you to license the same number of cores that you purchase in capacity in the premium license on premises for your Power BI Report Server.
You can purchase SQL Enterprise Edition + Software Assurance. This give you license to install the Power BI Report Server.
Only the Content Creators (those building reports) need to have a Power BI Pro license in both cases.
Alternatively, can I use Power BI Pro Service and publish content for consumers with the understanding each consumer must also have a Power BI Pro License? The Pro license gives you the ability to share content in the Power BI Service. You don't get the Power BI Report Server in this license. You are correct, report creators and end users need Pro licenses.
In this scenario, you would have a normal SSRS report server, and the Power BI Service. They would not communicate, and you couldn't put PBI Reports on the SSRS Server.
You can run Power BI Report Server on a server/VM to which you've allocated SQL Server Enterprise + Software Assurance licenses.
Say you have, for example, SQL Server Enterprise + Software Assurance licenses for 24 cores.
- If all 24 cores are already allocated to some server/VM (to run SQL Server), then you must run Power BI Report Server on that server/VM.
- If, say, 16 cores are allocated to some server/VM (to run SQL Server), then you could run Power BI Report Server on that server/VM, or, since you have 8 licenses unallocated, you could allocate them to a different, 8-core server/VM and run Power BI Report Server there.
Hope this example helps.
Does a customer need a minimum number of cores in their SQL EE with SA to use Power BI Report Server? My understanding was that it needed to match PBI P1 capacity as a minimum, is this correct? if so, is it the 8 v-cores (P1 front end) that need to be matched, 4 cores (P1 back end), or something else?
Per the Product Terms, there's no minimum # of cores overall or per server, but there's an effective minimum of 4 cores per physical processor or per VM. That said, for a production environment, we usually recommend at least 8 cores.