PowerBI Gateway : SQL + VPN Source

[hellodfkh]

Hi forum, 

I am developing a dashboard which will connect to a SQL Server which is further secured by access only through a Virtual Machine and a VPN. My end goal is to embed the report in a flask application and host it online for the public. Though I went through documentation and some posts on the forum but nothing clearly describes what to do when a VPN is present to access the database. 

I read the docs for PowerBI Data Gateway and I possibly see the following solution: 

- Installing PowerBI Desktop and Gateway on a Windows Virtual Machine which is on premises and has access to the database

- Connecting the PowerBI Gateway to the database 

- Publishing the Power BI report 

- Embedding the URL of the report in a flask application and hosting the flask application on a linux server

I wanted to know whether my direction is right or I am missing something in the whole picture. 

Help and feedback would be very highly appreciated.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @hellodfkh 

Yes that will work because as long as the Gateway can connect to you SQL Server it can also connect to the Power BI service allowing you to then refresh the data.

[TomMartens]

Hey @hellodfkh ,

next to what @GilbertQ  already mentioned, keep in mind that you have to import the data to your Power BI semantic model, as direct query connection types are not supported by the "Publish to web" feature: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-publish-to-web

Not sure, but it sounds a little bit awkward that you want to share data from server "secured" by vpn machine with the public internet.

Regards,

Tom

[hellodfkh]

Thank you so much @TomMartens @GilbertQ for the reply. In this case then, how do I make the dashboard live to the public? The scenario is that though the data is in secure environments, the analysis on top of the data has to be made public.

[TomMartens]

Hey @hellodfkh , 

if the requirement is to make the data public, there is no other way than "Publish to web."

This means you have to import the data from the SQL Server to your semantic model.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to help regarding the VPN.

Regards,

Tom