Power BI Report Server On-Premises licensing cost and configuration requirement

[Anonymous]

Hello

My organization is interested in using Power BI desktop for developing reports and Power BI Report Server completely on-premises on our VM.

Want to know about the cost for the same and VM configuration which will be used for the report server.

What about consumers and report developers -
a) Consumers need to view reports (Power BI report will be embedded in single page application).
b) Developers need to publish reports using Power BI Desktop (approx 25 developers).

Thanks in advance.

[josef78]

You have two options:

1) Simple, buy Power BI Premium per capacity, where you can use e.g. P1 nodes each with 4+4core/25GB RAM with 5000USD/month/#P1. It is primary for cloud deployment, with additional benefit, option to use small on-prem server limited to 8core and only for PBIRS server (you cannot use SSAS or SSIS features).

2) Better (for large long-term on-prem deployment) is SQL Server EE with SA. There is little hard to say simple price, because there no monthly pricing, and there are two parts of price: once-charge and recurring , but basically, for first 3 years you will pay once 60000USD/2core, for next every year you will pay 5000USD/2core/year. You can use licence for physical cores or virtual cores, but better is physical cores, because you can share resources. You can use full set of SQL EE features (including SSAS and SSIS).

All prices are only aprox and for base level, real price (and discount) depends on your agreement. You also need some PBI Pro licences.

For large deployments, is best way to use both options, where you can scale as you need.

[Anonymous]

May I know the clear difference between Power BI Pro Per User vs Power BI Premium Per User?

[d_gosbell]

The Premium Per User features are documented here 
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/enterprise/service-premium-per-user-faq 

Note that once a workspace is assigned as Premium Per User anyone that wants to access items in that workspace will require a PPU license

[Anonymous]

Hello d_gosbell,

Thanks for your reply.

Is it Power BI Premium per user per month or Power BI Premium per capacity per month?

What is the cost for an Enterprise SQL Server license with Software Assurance?

[d_gosbell]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Is it Power BI Premium per user per month or Power BI Premium per capacity per month?

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It is Premium Capacity

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@Anonymous wrote:

What is the cost for an Enterprise SQL Server license with Software Assurance?

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It depends on what sort of licensing agreement you have with Microsoft, you'd have to ask your reseller. But I would expect it to be in a similar range.

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Want to know about the cost for the same and VM configuration which will be used for the report server.

There are two ways of licensing report server you can either have an Enterprise SQL Server license with Software Assurance or you can buy Power BI premium capacity. If you buy via premium capacity you are licensed to have the same number of cores used for an on-prem Report Server. You can find pricing information here https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/ the entry price for premium is for a P1 capacity which has 8 cores. (which is roughly US$5000 per month ) The pricing for Enterprise SQL Server with SA depends on your enterprise agreement with Microsoft, but I believe the costs are probably comparable.

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@Anonymous wrote:

a) Consumers need to view reports (Power BI report will be embedded in single page application).

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Consumers are free on Report Server and do not need a license

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@Anonymous wrote:

b) Developers need to publish reports using Power BI Desktop (approx 25 developers).

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People that publish reports to Report Server require a Power BI Pro license (so roughly US$10 per user per month)