Tableau Server on Azure
Michael Perillo Apr 13, 2016 10:51 AMHello Community
Curious if anyone is using or has attempted to run Tableau Server on the Microsoft Azure platform.
@tableau - the documentation needs to be updated to reflect the new Azure Portal Interface and have instructions for Classic and New VM configs.
1. I had the most difficult time connecting to the VM server. Finally, I figured out I was connecting to the wrong Resource Group. My fault, but really, I think Microsoft can do a better job to display their structure of resources.
2. I've got Tableau Server installed - well, it was actually installed by default.
3. I was able to log from the VM and verify that Tableau Server is working - Yay!
4. I'm now wanting to access Tableau Server (web) from my local/public computer. I've tried connecting to the IP Address, the DNS and it can't find anything. The Tableau Documentation doesn't seem to have a deep enough end-to-end experience to let me know what I might have missed. Second - Microsoft documentation is less than desirable when trying to figure out what I need to do.
If anyone has had success I'd love a bit of walk-thru help
Thanks!
Michael Perillo
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UPDATE : 2016-04-11 12:40pm EST
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1. When not using the Classic VMs, there is no End Point to configure. You'll have to set Inbound Rules to allow HTTP (port 80) under Network Security.
2. Fantastic - got that working. Sort of
3. Afterwards, I logged into the VM from the Azure Portal and pulled up Tableau Server via localhost using IE. Along with it the BYOL checkpoint runs again on Azure. Why??
4. I proceed to Start the trial and submit, but Tableau comes back and says no, you're trial expired. --Really? Trials expire after 4 hours now?
5. I checked the licenses using tabadmin licenses and 0 users, 0 seats are available.
6. I shutdown Tableau Server using tabadmin stop and restarted the VM -- reboots sometimes fix things, right?
7. Logged back into the VM and got the activation notification again
8. Tried Starting the trial and go this, again.
9. And blocked via IE, too. E-mailing customer service.
I'll provide an update when I have more to share. All in all, this wasn't horrible. It was my ignorance (or lack of familiarity with Azure to know where to go to do XYZ. Tableau's documentation is perhaps relevant if I used the Classic mode of Azure, but they've killed off my other classic services, so why wouldn't I think they'd do the same to this at some point. In any case, I spent three days trying to get this working, fumbling and bumbling along the way, but making strides; so that's a good thing. I don't know what caused this issue with the trial to all of a sudden die after 4 hours of activation. I did confirm when it was first activated that I had until 2016-04-25 until expiration....soooo, chalk this up to another license/activation snafu.
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UPDATE : 2016-04-13 1:36pm EST
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I ran through a few KB articles to see if I could figure out and possibly repair the Trial key.
- Tableau Server Activation Troubleshooting | Tableau Software
- Customer Activation Utility | Tableau Software
It just showed that "No fulfillment records in trusted storage".
THE FIX
- I deleted the Virtual Machine. Took all of 1 minute to complete.
- I spun up a new VM based on the Marketplace offering of Tableau Server (D3). Took all of 2 minutes to complete.
- I provisioned the Inbound network configuration to allow HTTP (port 80) and added a DNS. Took all of 1 minute to complete.
- I RDP'd into my VM, the BYOL license batch started, Tableau Server configuration for [Start Trial Now, Start Trial Later, Activate] came up. Started the Trial, registered, added my Admin ID to Tableau Server in IE, done. Took all of 3 minutes
Seven minutes to resolve. Hopefully this sticks and I don't have this issue again. I guess the learning opportunity is that it is pretty easy to get Tableau Server up an running on Microsoft Azure. Seven minutes to have hardware, software and all that isn't too bad