PowerConnect Prerequisites

Hardware:

• 8 cores.
• 64 GB memory.
• 128 GB disk space.

Operating System: 

• Windows Server 2016 or higher.

For OAuth2 authentication, a Microsoft Power BI REST API App needs to be registered. Steps to register the Microsoft Power BI REST API App are described in the Cubewise PowerConnect REST API Setup Guide. 

An Azure tenant admin usually does the App registration. 

The service component will issue requests on HTTP or HTTPS to IBM Planning Analytics instances. 

The URLs for outbound requests in your IBM Planning Analytics Local environment are composed by the protocol, the machine name followed by the HTTPPortNumber. 

The protocol depends on the UseSSL setting in the tm1s.cfg file for a given instance. 

UseSSL = T 

UseSSL = F 

http://<tm1server>:<port> 

If CAM authentication is used, outbound requests are sent to the IBM Cognos Analytics gateway configured in the tm1s.cfg file for a given instance. 

Example: 

http://ca-host:80/ibmcognos/bi/v1/disp 

The URLs that PowerConnect uses can be found in your welcome kit provided by IBM Planning Analytics on Cloud. These have the following format: 

https:/<tenant>.planning-analytics.ibmcloud.com 

The outbound port is 443. 

The service component can be configured to listen on a specific port. Firewall rules for inbound requests need to match this port. 

Two main sources of inbound requests for PowerConnect are the Custom Connector and the Microsoft Power BI On-premises gateway. 

If firewall rules need to be implemented for inbound requests based on individual IP addresses, the project owner will need to provide a list of the relevant IP addresses. 

The Microsoft Power BI On-premises gateway can be installed on the same machine where the PowerConnect service is installed. In this case, no additional firewall rules apply. 

If the Microsoft Power BI On-premises gateway is installed on a different machine, a firewall for inbound requests must be added for the IP Address or FQN on the port configured for the PowerConnect service. 

To enable the ability to refresh datasets in the Microsoft Power BI Service, a Microsoft Power BI On-premises gateway needs to be installed or configured if one already exists. 

PowerConnect installs a Windows service. This service can be configured to use service credentials if IT policies require it. 

The installation of PowerConnect requires administrator credentials. 

To install software and configure a Windows Service, remote access with an administrator account is required.