Forum Discussion

IanBradley's avatar
IanBradley
Regular Visitor
8 years ago

PowerBI Desktop for Report Server - Cost?

Is there a cost associated with PowerBI Desktop for Report Server?   I'd heard $10 USD/month/user.  If so, how is this administered? Or, is the only cost associated with SQL Server Enterprise 2016 (a...
Cost
Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
8 years ago
Hi Greg_Deckler,

Thanks for your reply, and the link. Interesting, this is not as I understood things. Though MS licensing is never easy to understand.  Lucky that the Power BI Pro is not so expensive. However, given we have paid many thousands of £ for our PBI RS via SQL SVR lic with SA it seems a little OTT to charge for the pleasure of being able to publish content to it.

I guess if I only publish SSRS reports to it I don't need Power BI Pro? This seems a little nonsensical.

 

I notice the link is quite old ( in Power BI terms anyway ) and so I wonder if any of the MS staff can comment on the need for both SQL Server Ent with SA and Power BI pro?  riccardomuti,mgmeyer  v-yulgu-msft

 

Thanks again.

Regards

Rob

 

 

 

 

 

Greg_Deckler's avatar
Greg_Deckler
Icon for Community Champion rankCommunity Champion
8 years ago

Correct, if you only publish SSRS reports you do not need a Pro license. In addition, I think it is more of a *technically you need a license* versus that it just won't work...

  • IanBradley's avatar
    IanBradley
    Regular Visitor
    8 years ago

    You state 'technically you need a license'.  This is to the point of my original question.   I have a customer who is saying how do they actually pay and track licenses? i.e. how do they align a PowerBI Desktop RS license with an actual payment?   It's like anyone can download PowerBI Desktop RS and just use it with no prompts to ever register the license

    • Greg_Deckler's avatar
      Greg_Deckler
      Icon for Community Champion rankCommunity Champion
      8 years ago

      Correct, but technically you are supposed to have a Pro license if you publish to the Report Server. Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just explaining the licensing requirements to the best of my knowledge. There have been licenses like this in the past like the Windows Server "External Connector" license. You were supposed to have it if you had external connections coming into your Windows Server but there was no enforcement mechanism other than audits.

      • Anonymous's avatar
        Anonymous
        Not applicable
        8 years ago
        Hi Greg_Deckler,

         

        Thanks for your input on this, I appreciate you taking the time to answer the questions, please don't feel we are ungrateful. I'm sure you understand our confusion on this front, it seems very odd ( to me anyway ) that the requirement for a Power BI Pro lic is so poorly documented and monitored,  its a technicality that Microsoft have not properly documented.

         

        There must be many users of the On-Prem solution that do not know about this requirement.

         

        Thanks again.

        Rob