Report server direct query with windows authentication gets SSAS connection error

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pbiuser1234 wrote:

Thanks a lot for the reply,
Regarding the eliminitation of one of the "hops" - in my case, SSMS is not installed on the power bi machine - database is on a different server, so when I run the report from the machine and it works, If I understand you correctly, there are still credentials that are passed between machines.

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Yes, when you use windows authentication there are still credentials that pass between machines

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pbiuser1234 wrote:

Regarding the Kerberos issue - I have allready set spn as the article applies, step 1 and 2.

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The SPNs are only part if it, you also have to have the constrained delegation configured in AD and if you have the slightest thing wrong in any part of the configuration it just does not work - you don't get a nice error message. If you run a profiler trace against SQL Server while trying to run the report you will probably see an anonymous user attempting to connect.

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pbiuser1234 wrote:

Other steps refer to the Analysis Services service - which I have not installed - that is why I asked is SSAS installation a mendetory? since sql database is on a different server.
Thanks in advanced

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Installing SSAS is optional, but both SQL and SSAS use windows authentication so the if you have both you need to configure Kerberos for both.

The reason you get the error that Analysis Services could not connect is probably because Power BI Report Server includes an embedded version of SSAS - this is what runs the tabular models in your pbix reports. So that is the thing that is translating the queries into SQL and submitting them to the database server. But you do not need to install or configure it separately - it's an internal part of Power BI Report Server.