2 Replies Latest reply on Apr 14, 2016 3:33 PM by michael.perillo.2

    Tableau Server on Azure

    Michael Perillo
    Michael Perillo Apr 13, 2016 10:51 AM

      Hello 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

      activation.PNG

      8. Tried Starting the trial and go this, again.

      activation_error.PNG

      9. And blocked via IE, too.  E-mailing customer service.

      IE_TableauServer_Unlicensed.PNG

       

      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.

       

       

      It just showed that "No fulfillment records in trusted storage". 

       

       

      THE FIX

       

      1. I deleted the Virtual Machine.  Took all of 1 minute to complete.
      2. I spun up a new VM based on the Marketplace offering of Tableau Server (D3).  Took all of 2 minutes to complete.
      3. I provisioned the Inbound network configuration to allow HTTP (port 80) and added a DNS.  Took all of 1 minute to complete.
      4. 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

        • 1. Re: Tableau Server on Azure
          Russell Christopher
          Russell Christopher Apr 13, 2016 1:52 PM (in response to Michael Perillo)

          Michael -

           

          Folks typically have a couple problems with Azure:

           

          • Poor disk perf. You'll want to use "Premium Storage", and even then, you may not get enough IOPS to support long term, heavy duty usage of Tableau Server unless you stripe multiple Premium Storage disks together into one volume and install Tableau on that volume. This can get costy and is kind of a pain in the ****.
          • Our FlexNet licensing doesn't play especially well with Azure. If you stop / restart your VM, it'll come up on different hardware, which causes licensing to force you to re-activate or the server won't start. You can only reactivate *so many times* before your key can no longer be used (requiring a call and/or email to support to "reset" it).
          • The standard security stuff you ran into - traffic is almost always restricted to RDP on both Azure and EC2, so you have to setup inbound (and sometimes outbound) rules to allow requests/respones to flow back and forth

           

          #2 will hopefully be resolved around v10, but no promises.

          2 of 2 people found this helpful
          • 2. Re: Tableau Server on Azure
            michael.perillo.2
            michael.perillo.2 Apr 14, 2016 3:33 PM (in response to Russell Christopher)

            Russell,

             

            Thanks for the reply.  #2 makes total sense now. If I kept the IP as static instead of dynamic I wouldn't have this issue; I assume. 

             

            I just ran into the issue again after I shut the VM down and restarted.  Since I'm using the trial only, it's dead and I'll have to start again. I'll spin up another VM this weekend for my training, but I appreciate the feedback on the nuances. I'll re-read the section on your blog to make sure I didn't miss anything, too. 

             

            For #3, I wasn't familiar with where to go to in Azure to configure the Inbound Rules; found it by searching their help section. Tableau Azure documentation is all based on the 'Classic' look and feel (and terminology); might be a good idea to make note of the different layouts available so others aren't lost.

             

            Cheers!

            Michael