SQL Azure ODBC Driver for Power BI Connection

Accessing the SQL Azure database can be fast and seamless by using the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) solution. Providing full interoperability, the ODBC driver for SQL Azure allows you to access live SQL Azure data directly from Power BI. It enables you to retrieve data to Power BI, and review and modify these data right in this application.

SQL Azure Key Features

Open source
Low memory leakage problem
Support for multiple table types
Platform Independent

Power BI Key Features

Interactive data visualization
Data modeling and transformation
Collaboration and sharing
Integration with other Microsoft tools

Direct Connection

Our data connector enables various ODBC-aware applications to establish a direct connection to SQL Azure via TCP/IP to eliminate the need for a SQL Azure client. A direct connection increases the speed of data transmission between Power BI and SQL Azure for real-time analytics. It streamlines the deployment process since there is no need to distribute any additional client-side software with the ODBC driver for SQL Azure.

What are some reasons to choose Devart ODBC Driver for SQL Azure?

Integration

ODBC Driver for SQL Azure is compatible with Power BI allowing extraction of data by executing SQL statements.

Platforms Variety

ODBC Driver for SQL Azure can be used with 32-bit and 64-bit applications on both x32 and x64 platforms, so there is no need to additionally configure the driver, applications, or environment.

Fully Unicode-Compliant Driver

With our fully Unicode-compliant driver, you can properly retrieve and modify any data in multilingual SQL Azure databases, regardless of their character set: Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Chinese, etc., and in any language environment.

How to download, install, and configure ODBC Driver for SQL Azure?

Windows
macOS
Linux

Step 1. Download and install the driver

Download the driver. Run the installer and follow the instructions in the wizard. Open ODBC Data Sources. In the System DSN tab, click Add. Select the needed driver and click Finish.

Step 2. Activate the driver

In the License tab of the Configuration dialog, click Input Activation Key and enter your key. Click OK.

Step 3. Configure the Data Source Name (DSN)

In the General tab of the Configuration dialog, fill in the fields with the database connection data. To test the connectivity, click Test Connection. To save the DSN, click OK.

To install and configure ODBC Driver for SQL Azure on macOS, download first the PKG file from the Devart website. Run the downloaded file and follow the instructions in the wizard. After installing the driver, run the 64-bit or 86-bit iODBC utility, find the needed driver, and click Configure. In the dialog box that appears, specify the required connection settings and click OK. To establish a connection to the data source, click Test.

GUI installation on Ubuntu

Installation of an ODBC driver on Ubuntu is carried out from the DEB package. Download the package that matches the bitness of your operating system.

Then open the folder with the downloaded package, double-click the DEB package, and click Install.

Command-line installation on Ubuntu

Open the Terminal and install the driver by using the following command.

Installation on CentOS

If you use CentOC, you need to download the RPM package of the corresponding bitness.

After that, open the Konsole and navigate to the folder with the downloaded package specifying the path to the folder as a parameter of the cd command. Then, install the driver by using the following commands.

To install the devartodbcsqlazure_i386.deb on a 32-bit system, use:

use sudo dpkg -i devartodbcsqlazure_i386.deb

To install the devartodbcsqlazure_amd64.deb on a 64-bit system, use:

sudo dpkg -i devartodbcsqlazure_amd64.deb

For more detailed information about installing and configuring ODBC Driver for SQL Azure on Ubuntu, go to the documentation.

cd ~/Downloads/

To install the devart-odbc-sqlazure.i386.rpm on a 32-bit system, use:

sudo -rpm -ivh devart-odbc-sqlazure.i386.rpm

To install the devart-odbc-sqlazure.x86_64.rpm on a 64-bit system, use:

sudo rpm -ivh devart-odbc-sqlazure.x86_64.rpm

For more detailed information about installing and configuring ODBC Driver for SQL Azure on Centos, go to the documentation.

Advantages of Connectivity to SQL Azure from Power BI via ODBC Driver

Secure Connection

Every operation with SQL Azure becomes significantly faster using such capabilities of our driver as local data caching, connection pooling, and much more.

Working with Power BI using Multiple Functions

Using Power BI, you can create tables, add data, select, delete, sort, edit, combine data from several database tables, and find unique values quickly and easily.

ODBC Conformance

The driver fully supports the ODBC interface, its data types, and functions. It offers advanced connection string parameters and allows any ODBC-compliant desktop or web application to connect to SQL Azure from Power BI on various platforms.

Simple SQL Querying on Power BI Files

Power BI processes SQL through its SQL dialect. Using ODBC connection, it is simple to execute different SQL queries to retrieve entire tables or specific columns from Excel, filter data, format data, numbers, etc.

Cost-Effective Deployment

Installing the driver is easy with the standalone installation file. There is no need in deploying and configuring any additional software which results in a reduction in deployment costs.

Sharing Your Data with Power BI

You can share your data with other users in Power BI quickly and easily. Upload your Power BI data to the SharePoint lists so that it can be available for you and others to use to create reports, data models, dashboards, etc.