Steps for Installation and Configuration of Power BI Reporting Server

[Anonymous]

Hi Power BI Community members and experts,

1. We are working for a customer who has Office 365 (E3 plan) with all the users are on the cloud, vanilla SharePoint Online and has On-Premises environment. They have both On-Premises and Office 365 set up.
   
   
2. The finance department has a lot of sensitive and confidential information. They have SQL Server 2016 Enterprise with Software Assurance (SA) and already have Data warehouse on SQL Server On-Premises.
   
   
3. They are setting up SSRS and wanted to use Power BI especially for On-Premises only due to sensitive information.
4. We proposed the following set up with SaaS and On-Premises, hybrid cloud model consisting only of Power BI and Office 365 using on-premises data sources only:
   
   
5. We also recommended to have a separate Power BI Reporting Server besides SQL Server 2016.
   
   Q:
   Is having a sperate server / VM recommended for Power BI Reporting Server?
   We found that Hardware / Software requirements for Power BI Reporting Server.  
   
   
6. We will be following step-up for Install Power BI Reporting Server with integration SQL Server 2016 for this customer:
   
   
   • Verify the recommended system requirements for Power BI reporting server.
   • Install the Power BI Report Server.
   • Obtain Power BI Reporting Server key.
   • Configure the Report Server   
   • Verify if Power BI Report Server Windows Server Windows Services is running.
   • Verify the Firewall.
   • Verify SQL Server 2016 SSRS with Power BI Reporting Sever

Any additional or have to be modified in the above steps?
Any help would be highly appreciated.  

[Anonymous]

Hey Sandy,

You should first have an understanding of the low-level requirements of the solution you're providing before you can make design decisions. Generally it is recommended to have a dedicated Report Server set up so resources aren't constrained.

Some questions to ask whilst scoping out your requirements:

• How many users will be requiring the reporting services?
• Which web browser will the be using to view the portal?
• Will the report's data be using Import or DirectQuery methods?
• How many years of data will the report's require to display/hold? 

These all use varying amounts server memory and when you have some ball park figures, make sure you add an extra amount of memory on top to account for growth.

Spec'ing out your Report Server is a crucial step you have to get right in order to avoid any project delays. This also extends to ensuring that the DW is performing optimally and returning data efficiently for the Report Server to consume in a timely manner.

[Anonymous]

Hi @Anonymous ..

Thanks a ton for your reply ...
below are my replies: 

• How many users will be requiring the reporting services? -
  
  around 20-25 users from the Finance department only who will be viewing/modifying the reports only the On-Premises environment. 
  
  Others users (800 users) will be Office 365 to view other departments using Power BI Free edition.  
     
• Which web browser will the be using to view the portal?
  
  Internet Explorer 11 
  
  
• Will the report's data be using Import or DirectQuery methods?
  
  Primarily import method. 
   
• How many years of data will the report's require to display/hold?
  
  Around 7-10 years. 
  
  Q: Do you consider other any other factor(s) for my solution design to set to Power BI reporting server or any other suggestion? 

Thank you so much for your help! 

[Anonymous]

Im assuming that the finance users will have specific access to only certain records and they can only view what they're privleged to view - correct? If this is the case, you'll need to worry a bit about how authentication will be designed within the reports.

Authentication is used for Row Level Security, if you're using an Import method you cannot take advantage of SQL Server 2016+ RLS features (Security policies and predicates) and will have to architect a more... round-about way of providing RLS, either in DW Data Model, or within the Power BI reports themselves.

Please also note, that current version of Report Server does not have the capabilities to manage user Roles for reports just yet, so expect difficulty in setting this up -Power BI Service would be better suited for this case.

This is where taking Power BI Service would be advantageous as it has more baked and ready to use features that are reguarly updated - whereas Report Server is lagging behind by several months.

[Anonymous]

@v-frfei-msft @v-piga-msft ..any suggestions, please? 

[Anonymous]

Hi Power BI community, any reply please? 

@v-qiuyu-msft 

@SivaMani

@v-yuezhe-msft 

@thiagopinho