When you install Tableau Server on a Microsoft Azure virtual machine (VM), you still have the advanced capabilities of Tableau Server in a local environment. Running Tableau Server on a Microsoft Azure VM is an excellent choice if you want the flexibility of scaling up and scaling out without having to purchase and maintain an expensive fleet of servers. For instance, you can configure Tableau Server to be highly available, and integrate with all of the common enterprise applications (for example, Active Directory) that many organizations rely on.
Looking for Tableau Server on Windows? See Install Tableau Server on Microsoft Azure(Link opens in a new window).
Tableau Server can take advantage of many native Azure features:
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Azure SQL Database(Link opens in a new window): Relational database-as-a-service that uses the Microsoft SQL Server Engine.
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Azure Synapse Analytics(Link opens in a new window): (formerly Azure SQL Data Warehouse) Massively parallel processing (MPP) cloud-based distributed database system.
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Apache Spark on Azure HDInsight(Link opens in a new window): Open-source parallel processing framework for big-data analytic applications.
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Azure Active Directory(Link opens in a new window): Cloud-based directory and identity management service.
In addition, you can store the data you use with Tableau Server using any of the following Microsoft features. Tableau provides native data connectors(Link opens in a new window) that enable you to connect to data in the following Microsoft data sources:
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Azure Synapse Analytics(Link opens in a new window): Cloud data warehouse for enterprises.
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Microsoft Excel(Link opens in a new window): Spreadsheet included in Microsoft Office.
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Microsoft SQL Server(Link opens in a new window): Relational database management system that uses structured query language (SQL).