Data Gateway to on premise SQL Server Costs

[studz02]

Hello,

So I was working with a customer that stated they were using Power BI and connecting to onprem SQL through a gateway and it stopped working. They were told it was a license issue. Based on what I hear from them I believe its a problem with there datasource on the gateway where the creds don't have perms to the SQL server. Since I'm not a Power BI expert, I wanted to confirm if customers need to bump up their license to Power BI Premium to access data from their SQL server on prem. Their users all have Power BI Pro. Looking at this doc https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/#powerbi-comparison-table  it seems that might be the case based on the line item "On-premises reporting through Power BI Report Server". Clear as mud. 

Customer comments.

"

We had set it up several years ago and it worked fine but it stopped before our last engagement with you guys.

At that time we were told that we needed a license but we would be temporarily licensed.

That temporary fix has apparently ended.

We are looking for a permanent fix.  Now we see this. 

This report couldn’t access the data source.

I re ran it locally and it worked.

I published it and when I went online I got the error.

"

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

@studz02 - OK, first, you do not need Premium just to access data residing in an on-premises SQL Server database. Not now, not ever at any time. Maybe you need to update the gateway?

Premium grants you a license to run Power BI Report Server on premises. PBRS is kind of a sup'd up SSRS so it has nothing to do with retrieving data from SQL databases but rather displaying reports on-premises vs in the Service.

See my blog article: https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Community-Blog/Power-BI-Licensing-in-Pictures-Updated/ba-p/1291304