Connect Power BI Service to PostgreSQL Database on Azure

Question

I´m using the Power BI Service (https://app.powerbi.com) to present important KPI´s. Now I move to a new System which is fully based on Azure. The main database is a PostgreSQL Instance (DbaaS - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/postgresql/).

Connecting to the database from my local Power BI Desktop Version and querying data works perfect. But as soon as I deploy the Report on Power BI Service, I´m unable to automate data refresh cause it seems that the Power BI Service can only connect to the PostgreSQL instance on Azure using a local Data Gateway.

In fact it doesn´t make much sense to use an on-prem connector to bring data from one cloud application to another.

Does anybody know how I and if I can connect Power BI Service and PostgreSQL Database on Azure directly?

Thanks a lot in advance & best, Michael

Answer 1

It seems that you need to configure a gateway to make it working https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chmitch/2018/06/04/complete-guide-to-setting-up-power-bi-connecting-to-postgres-w-refresh-enabled/

Hope it helps.

I did not go so far myself. My expectation was to connect Postgres to Power BI in a few clicks and get a dashboard online. I was very surprised that it needs dancing with ssl certificates, configuring gateway o_O.