This comes up a lot so I wanted to make a quick check list of steps necessary to run SQL Server Analysis Services in Azure and expose it as a data set in Power BI.
- Create a new VM in Azure
- Join the new VM to your corporate domain (may require networking configuration and VPN to enable VM to see your corporate network)
- Install Analysis Services (AS) on the VM
- Configure it to run under a service account
- Add required IT team members and/or Service Accounts as Analysis Services administrators
- Make sure AS is patched up to the latest Service Packs and updates
- Configure model refresh mechanism (SQL Server Agent for example)
- Install all necessary client access libraries and drivers (Access Runtime, Oracle Driver, etc.)
- Install AS Connector (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=522228) and make sure it can login as a service (if it can’t, check for AD policies that might be preventing this and resolve it)
- Configure it to run under an AD account that has a password that does not expire
- Add AS Server as a Power BI Data Set in PowerBI.com using Get Data ->Databases->SQL Server Analysis Services
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