It's pretty straightforward to install and configure a single-computer deployment of Tableau Server. This chapter gets you lot started.

Questions you need to be able to reply

Earlier you lot run setup, y'all must have answers to the post-obit questions:

  • How volition you lot license your installation?

  • How will users authenticate to Tableau Server?

  • How volition Tableau Server admission data sources?

  • What hardware will you need?

This chapter volition assistance you answer these questions.

The Tableau Server licensing model

Tableau Server term licenses are available with 2 unlike license metrics: User-Based and Core-Based. Term licenses, also known as subscription licenses, permit you to apply and update Tableau Server for a specified period of fourth dimension.

Tableau offers multiple types of User-Based term licenses that grant a range of capabilities at various price points, providing the flexibility for organizations to pay for the data analysis and data visualization capabilities that each type of user in their organisation needs.

User-based metric

User-based licenses specify exactly how many named users of each type (Creator, Explorer or Viewer) you tin have for Tableau Server. With these licenses you can deploy Tableau Server on a single computer or on multiple computers in a cluster, as long as the total number of users doesn't exceed what the license allows.

Each user who interacts with Tableau Server content—publishes, views, downloads, etc.—must sign in to the server. (Nosotros discuss afterwards how you tin can create user identities on Tableau Server and options for how users can sign in.) A unmarried user tin can work on multiple sites and projects, and tin can even have different permissions on different sites. From the licensing perspective, a user is simply a user identity on Tableau Server.

Core-based metric

With a cadre-based license y'all can run Tableau Server on a specific number of CPU cores(Link opens in a new window). For core-based licensing, you tin can install Tableau Server on a single-node or multi-node cluster, as long as the full number of cores for all of the nodes does non exceed the number of cores that you take licensed. Cadre-based licensing imposes no constraints on the number of user accounts in the system. This tin can include the Guest users who are allowed to interact with embedded views, simply who don't have to sign in to Tableau Server in club to exercise so.

An important consideration when using a cadre-based license model will exist performance, considering a set number of cores tin only back up so many users without having an bear upon on server responsiveness. Depending on the complication of the workbooks on the server, extract usage, user concurrency, and the depth of interaction, you tin can back up ten and 100 users per core and still expect reasonable performance.

Note that if you intend to install Tableau Server on a virtual machine (VM), bank check the specifications for the VM, which might be listed using vCPUs.

Choose a license

The type of license you lot choose depends on how your users will work with Tableau Server. Hither are a couple of scenarios:

  • You have a small workgroup where but a handful of users will publish and view workbooks. In this case, you might beginning with a user-based license for 10 users (or more if you lot have more than users).

  • Yous have a small workgroup of users who will publish and manage workbooks, but who will brand views available to hundreds or thousands of people in the company. For this scenario, you might start with a core-based license that allows unlimited users.

Y'all can modify the license metric used—for instance, you tin move from a user-based to a core-based license if the number of users you need to back up grows.

If y'all're withal deciding what type of license to get, define the scenario you anticipate and contact Tableau(Link opens in a new window) to talk over what license and metric volition best arrange your needs. You tin can also larn more than in the Tableau Server online help. See Licensing Overview(Link opens in a new window).

Identity storage: apply an external or use local identity shop?

You must cull i of these models during the installation process; you can't alter the identity shop type after unless you reinstall Tableau Server. If yous are working with your It department, you'll want to connect with the identity management folks to help plan and implement your identity store model. You lot tin can refer them to this identity store topic in the Tableau Server online assist for more information.

Does your organisation run Active Directory or another LDAP directory service? These are considered "external identity stores." If your system uses an external identity store, then you probably desire to use it with Tableau Server as well. If your organization doesn't apply Active Directory or another LDAP directory service, so you'll configure Tableau Server to use local identity store.

The identity store method you cull determines how you plan for user provisioning, site and server management, and data and customer access models. Mixed-way functionality—where some users are managed in an external directory and some are managed by the local Tableau server figurer—is not supported. If you accept some users who are non office of your corporate directory service and need access, so you must provision and manage all users locally.

This section describes both options and how to program for either identity store model. How you plan to authenticate users volition inform how y'all manage identities. We cover the basics of what authentication means and how Tableau Server can integrate with other hallmark technologies similar Kerberos, OpenID, and SAML.

What is authentication?

Authentication confirms a user's identity: who the user is. Any time y'all sign in to a server or a website, the credentials you provide (typically a user name and countersign) authenticate yous.

Tableau Server has its own user identity and authentication organization that lets you determine who can sign in to Tableau Server. Every user who accesses the server must exist represented as a user identity—an business relationship—on the Tableau server. (Actually, the Guest user characteristic we've mentioned allows bearding user admission to the server, just for at present, let's not include that in the discussion.)

As an ambassador, you determine how you want to create these user accounts in Tableau. The process of creating users and assigning permissions is called provisioning. Provisioning users is the showtime of several steps where the question of using an external directory vs. local identity store comes in.

Your IT department might exist happy to know that they tin also provision users with the Tableau command line tool (tabcmd) or with the Residual API.

Local identity store

If yous're installing Tableau Server in an system that doesn't run an external directory, or connecting to the external directory is non bachelor for you, yous must configure Tableau Server for local identity store.

When you configure Tableau Server with a local identity store, then Tableau Server will authenticate the users. This means that when users want to access Tableau Server, Tableau Server prompts them for a user proper noun and password and determines whether they're authenticated.

When you configure Tableau Server with local identity store, y'all can provision users either by creating them in the server web admin tool one at a time, or by importing user names and passwords via a CSV file.

Single sign-on: OpenID, SAML, and Kerberos authentication

Afterwards installation, you tin configure Tableau Server with a unmarried sign-on (SSO) provider. With SSO, users don't have to explicitly sign in to Tableau Server. Instead, the credentials they've used to authenticate already (for instance, by signing in to your corporate network) are reused to authenticate them into Tableau Server, and they tin skip the step of entering a user proper name and password in Tableau Server.

Tableau Server supports several types of SSO solutions: OpenID, SAML, and Kerberos. We don't include explicit instructions for how to configure any of these SSO solutions in this guide. But it's of import to sympathize how the decision about whether to use Active Directory, LDAP directory, or local hallmark affects SSO:

  • OpenID requires a local identity store.

  • Kerberos requires Windows Active Directory.

  • SAML works with either an external directory or an internal identity store.

For more than data well-nigh these options, see the links at the end of this chapter.

Data access

Some other factor to consider before you run setup is data access. Understanding how your users volition access data is important for these deployment variables:

  • Run Every bit service business relationship. The Run As service account is a Windows account that Tableau Server uses ("runs every bit") when information technology accesses resources on the server. For case, Tableau Server reads and writes files on the estimator where Tableau Server is installed. From the perspective of Windows, Tableau Server is doing this as the Run As service account.

    Past default, the Run As service business relationship is set to a local account called Network Service. This is fine for some scenarios, generally simple ones. Still, Tableau Server often must access external data sources such as relational databases, network shares, or cloud information. Tableau Server will try to access these resources as the Run As service business relationship, so that account must have permissions to those resources.

  • Hardware planning. An important cistron in hardware planning is to project how Tableau Server will access, store, serve, and manage data. The next department discusses how Tableau Server manages information and how that tin can impact how you lot plan your server configuration.

Where is your data?

Tableau is designed with the assumption that you have data in many places and that the information sources tin can be of various dissimilar types—spreadsheets, databases, deject-based storage, etc. If your arrangement has information in simply one place, y'all can simplify your Tableau Server deployment by optimizing for that single information source.

However, if your users will connect to multiple disparate sources of information, you'll need to make up one's mind how Tableau Server will sign in to the various data sources and how "fresh" the data served past a given source needs to exist for your users.

Information "freshness" and performance

All workbooks that your users create in Tableau Desktop start with information. Unless they are accessing a local file on their computer, they connect to a information source—such as a relational database, a file on a network share, or information in the cloud. A primary goal of cocky-service analytics is to provide an feel where users can get into the creative menses of asking and answering questions in real fourth dimension. To enable flow, your users need fast and uninterrupted admission to the most relevant information.

If data is incomplete, outdated, or if users must expect for it to load, your system will not realize the full potential of Tableau self-service analytics. Balancing data freshness and performance relies in large part on whether users are interacting with alive data or if they are working with extracts.

Understand the difference between extracts and live connections

Let'due south have a moment to describe the deviation betwixt extracts and live connections, then we'll explore their trade-offs and benefits.

A Tableau Server extract is a snapshot of data that has been copied from a data source. Extracts provide great performance considering the excerpt contains all the data that the workbook needs. Think of an extract as a cache of data loaded into Tableau Server for quick querying, analysis, and visualization.

The other option is a live connection. When a Tableau data source is configured for a live connexion, Tableau Server runs a query against the data source and caches the data. This means fresh information is always available as users request it. You tin can configure how long this cache is kept or whether information technology should be refreshed each time a user loads a view that uses live data.

When users publish a workbook to Tableau Server, they tin can choose how they want that workbook to access the data source:

  • Extract the information and parcel it with the workbook as a .twbx file, and so publish the packaged workbook. When other users view the published workbook on Tableau Server, Tableau Server renders views using the embedded extract. In this case, each workbook has its own excerpt, fifty-fifty if unlike workbooks began by connecting to the same database or other source. The extract can exist refreshed, either manually (by the user) or automatically (on a schedule).

  • Extract the information and publish the extract to the server every bit a saved data source. When other users view the file on Tableau Server, the server renders the view with the extract that is hosted and managed on the server. In this case, y'all tin can configure Tableau Server to refresh the extract from the underlying data source, either manually or on a schedule. Hosting data as an excerpt on Tableau Server reduces duplication and reduces traffic to the underlying source database. A unmarried reused extract will exist cached by server and will load much faster for subsequent viewers.

  • Utilize a alive information connection. Publishing a workbook that uses a live connection creates a Tableau Server information source. The information source configuration includes a pointer to the data source and can include the writer'southward embedded (and encrypted) credentials to the data source. Alternatively, workbook authors can go out their credentials out of the workbook. In this case, other users must enter credentials when they open a workbook that then connects to the data source, or the data source can utilise the Tableau Server account (the Run As service account).

In the context of data freshness, the freshest data will be served by a live connection to the information source. Withal, if there'south a lot of data, if the data requires complex queries, if the database is boring, or if the information doesn't alter frequently, functioning is oftentimes better with an extract. If users do piece of work with extracts, we recommend that you lot create a schedule for refreshing the extracts.

  • Users demand to exercise deep assay of huge amounts of data stored on traditional databases, or on data resources that have high latency or are overtaxed.

  • Users need offline access to the data, such every bit when they're traveling or presenting off-site.

  • Users are making analytic decisions that don't rely on real-time data.

  • User need to piece of work with data that's consolidated from multiple sources.

  • Users are prototyping an analysis using a small set of data. This keeps development fast and can reduce the load on the network and on databases. (When they finish developing, they can switch to a live connection.)

Every bit the Tableau Server administrator, y'all can create a refresh schedule for extracts. During a refresh, Tableau Server queries the live information source and updates the extract with the latest version of the data. The merely practical limitation on extract refresh frequency is the performance of your underlying data source—that is, how quickly it can run the queries needed to update your extract. (In general, we recommend that you schedule excerpt refresh jobs for off hours, because a refresh job can exist CPU intensive.)

When to use live connections

  • Your users require upwards-to-the-infinitesimal or real-time data to make business concern decisions.

  • You have database hardware defended to servicing Tableau Server analysis. The query load on a database is primarily a part of the complexity of the workbooks. For complex workbooks, the query load on traditional relational databases can be pregnant, because calculations are offloaded to the database.

  • You host your data in a database that is optimized for real-time analysis. Most big data and deject database solutions are designed for real-time, ad hoc analysis. Others, such as Hadoop, can be latent and have different functioning results depending on factors similar the size of the data, the connection method, and the configuration.

Data source hallmark and the Run Equally service account

Your instance of Tableau Server must connect to external data sources (unless all of your users will salve and embed an extract in their workbooks).

Tableau Server tin connect to more than than 40 different data sources. All data sources crave some kind of authentication for admission. While a full accounting of each source and its authentication scheme is outside the scope of this document, nosotros tin make some generalizations most how Tableau Server connects to data sources.

The point of this exercise is for you to determine if the default Run Equally service account, configured as the local Network Service account, will suffice for your needs. For many customers, the default Network Service account is not sufficient to access the data their users need. As a event, the Run Equally service business relationship must be updated with an Active Directory domain account.

By default, the Run Every bit service account is set to a local account called Network Service. Employ the default Network Service business relationship when:

  • You are using local authentication for Tableau Server.

  • All users in your organization include extracted information in the workbooks that they are uploading to Tableau Server.

  • External data sources that your users access through Tableau Server do not crave Windows NT integrated security or Kerberos. In most data-access scenarios, Microsoft SQL Server, MSAS, Teradata, and Oracle databases require Windows NT integrated security.

It's important to empathise the security implications of the account that Tableau Server uses for the Run As User. Specifically, if Tableau Server must admission other servers, file shares, or databases in your system, then the account that is configured for Run As User tin be used to access those resources. The account that is configured for Run As User must also take elevated permissions to the local Tableau Server computer. A full general best security practice is to limit the scope of all user accounts to the minimum required permissions. We make the aforementioned recommendation as y'all plan for the account that you will configure every bit the Run As User.

Files on network shares

Data that resides on network shares—files such every bit CSVs and Excel files—that are configured as alive information connections are accessed by the Run As service account.

While the Network Service account can be used to access resource on remote computers within the same Active Directory domain, nosotros do non recommend using the default business relationship for such scenarios. Instead, configure a domain account for Run As User if Tableau Server must connect to files on network shares in your organization.

Relational databases and cloud data

Many relational databases practise not require Run As User credentials for authentication. The same is true for cloud data sources. Instead, users usually access these data sources with their own credentials, or y'all equally ambassador can fix the credentials on the information source configuration in Tableau Server.

That said, some relational databases (for example, Microsoft SQL and MSAS) tin can just be accessed by Tableau Server when the server is configured with a Run As service account. And many databases allow users to specify the Run As service account when they publish a workbook.

Kerberos delegation (usually configured with Microsoft SQL Server) requires a Run Equally service account that is a member of the domain. Therefore, y'all must modify the default Run Every bit service account.

Run As service business relationship guidelines

If y'all are operating in an environment where a majority of your data sources are authenticated in the context of Active Directory, you will probably need to configure the Run As User to utilise a domain business relationship, not the local Network Service business relationship that'south the default. You can update the Run As User anytime, but given how essential this business relationship is to the proper functioning of Tableau Server, we recommend setting it appropriately it as function of your deployment plan.

Before yous install Tableau Server, you should create a domain user account that you volition configure as the Run Every bit service account.

Follow these guidelines for the account that y'all will create for Run As User:

  • If you are requesting an account from an IT professional who manages users in your Active Directory, then tell that person that you demand a service account for Tableau Server. "Service account" is It-speak for the blazon of business relationship that the Run As User represents: information technology'due south an account that services employ for authentication and access to resource on a network.

  • Create a dedicated account in Active Directory for the Tableau Server Run Equally service business relationship. In other words, don't use an existing account. Past using a defended account you can be sure that the data resources that you permission for Tableau Server are only attainable past Tableau Server Run As User.

  • Exercise not use an account with any kind of domain administrative permissions. In fact, when you lot create an business relationship in Agile Directory, create a domain user. Do not add the account that you create to any Active Directory security groups that needlessly elevate the permissions for the account.

  • Permission the data sources in your directory for this one account. As noted, the account that y'all'll use for Run As User needs but Read access to the appropriate information sources and network shares.

  • Make a annotation of when the countersign for this business relationship is fix to elapse. Create a calendar or task event then you are remind of the password change. You lot will need to update the password in Server Configuration whenever the user account countersign is updated.

  • When you run setup and specify your Run Every bit service account, the TabAdmin process will grant permission to the user on the computer where Tableau Server is running. In some cases, yous might demand to set additional permissions. Those cases are described in the Running Setup chapter.

Operating arrangement requirements

The post-obit 64-flake Microsoft Windows Server operating systems are supported:

  • Tableau Server 2021.iii.0 and later on:

    • Windows Server 2016

    • Windows Server 2019

    • Before versions:

  • Tableau Server 2020.1.0 - 2021.2.10:

    • Windows Server 2012

    • Windows Server 2012 R2

    • Windows Server 2016

    • Windows Server 2019

  • Tableau Server 2019.1.0 - 2019.x:

    • Windows Server 2008 R2

    • Windows Server 2012

    • Windows Server 2012 R2

    • Windows Server 2016

    • Windows Server 2019

Hardware requirements

What kind of server hardware will you need? To install Tableau Server, y'all must have a computer that meets the minimum hardware requirements(Link opens in a new window). Setup won't run if the figurer you are installing onto doesn't run across these requirements.

The minimum hardware requirements specified in the to a higher place link are really just recommended for trial and feasibility testing purposes. Nosotros don't suggest running Tableau Server in a production environment with the minimum requirements. Instead, nosotros accept a minimum recommendation for hardware:

Install Type

Processor

CPU

RAM

Gratis Disk Space

Unmarried node
  • 64-flake ( x64 chipsets)
  • Must support SSE4.2 and POPCNT didactics sets
  • ARM-based processors are not supported

8-core, 2.0 GHz or higher
  • 64 GB (version 2021.4.0 and afterward)
  • 32 GB (versions prior to 2021.iv.0)

fifty GB
If you are adding Tableau Prep Conductor to your Tableau Server installation, nosotros recommend you lot add a second node and dedicate this to running Tableau Server Prep Usher. This node should have a minimum of four cores (8 vCPUs), and 16 GB of RAM.

Multi-node and enterprise deployments

Contact Tableau for technical guidance.

Nodes must meet or exceed the minimum hardware recommendations, except:

  • Nodes running backgrounder, where 4 cores may be acceptable.

  • Defended node for Tableau Prep Usher: Minimum of four cores (8 vCPUs), and 16 GB of RAM.

Important: The disk space requirement cannot be checked until you initialize TSM.

  • Free disk infinite is calculated after the Tableau Server Setup program is unzipped. The Setup program uses near one GB of space. You may need to classify boosted disk space depending on various factors like whether y'all volition be using extracts.

  • Core count is based on "physical" cores. Concrete cores can represent bodily server hardware or cores on a virtual machine (VM). Hyper-threading is ignored for the purposes of counting cores.

  • RAM shown is the minimum recommended for a single-node installation. Your installation may function meliorate with more than RAM, depending on activeness, number of users, and background jobs, for example.

Ideally, yous can dedicate a estimator to only host Tableau Server. For example, to reach the best performance, the computer hosting Tableau Server should not also exist running other applications or running a total antivirus scanning solution. Nosotros also discourage running other databases on the same computer. If your server reckoner needs to run other applications equally well, you need to business relationship for their load on the shared resource as you plan your server sizing.

To determine if the recommended minimum hardware will work for your goals, consider how your users will interact with Tableau Server. This guide assumes you are installing Tableau Server for a user base of operations of upward to 100 users. Nonetheless, hardware requirements volition depend more on active simultaneous users, also referred to equally concurrent users. The requirements besides depend on how often Tableau Server is called on to refresh extracts that those users rely on to brand business organization decisions.

Our minimum hardware recommendation should be sufficient for single-server installations where up to ten active users simultaneously interact with content on Tableau Server. The recommendation likewise assumes a low frequency of excerpt refreshes that are all scheduled during off hours.

If this sounds like your scenario, and so skip the residuum of this section, ready your hardware, and keep to Running Setup.

If you lot're not sure whether the minimum hardware recommendation meets your needs, read the residue of this section for guidance on how to determine the right hardware specifications for your deployment.

Hardware upgrades

This department focuses on where you might consider increasing essential hardware resource based on a handful of critical variables to optimize for specific usage profiles.

Heavy workbook processing

If yous look to have more than 10 active simultaneous users interacting with content on the server, or if those users are all interacting with live connections, consider increasing the server RAM to 64 GB. Likewise consider converting popular data sources to extracts, in which case an installation with 64 GB of RAM typically can service up to threescore active simultaneous users.

As discussed in a previous section, users accessing Tableau content frequently interact with data that is extracted and managed on the server. How frequently Tableau Server refreshes these extracts is configurable for each data source. When possible, we recommend running scheduled extracts during non-work hours, but for mission-critical data, this is non always viable.

Each extract refresh process consumes an entire processor thread and is RAM intensive. The more frequently extracts are refreshed, the more cores and RAM you should add together and dedicate to the extract refresh process. Specially, in the default server configuration, if you lot wait to schedule multiple extract refreshes simultaneously, they will run serially and queue until a core and Backgrounder process is free. If you need to excerpt multiple refreshes simultaneously, and so you should configure Tableau Server to use two or more than Backgrounder processes. For more virtually this, see the links at the cease of this chapter.

Our minimum recommended hardware assumes that y'all are refreshing the majority of your extracts during non-work hours. This approach is considered a low refresh information employ contour.

A moderate data refresh employ profile is when you refresh extracts hourly. In this example, nosotros recommend at least 16 cores and 128 GB of RAM.

If you have more than 500 extracts, or if you lot refresh extracts to back up live data analysis, this is considered a high data refresh use profile. In this instance, you are exceeding the telescopic of this guide and yous should work with a Tableau consultant to design your deployment.

The more extracts you host on Tableau Server, the more physical hard disk drive space your computer will require. Centrally managed extracts reduce duplication that is common with workbooks that take packaged data.

Continue to Running Setup.

Boosted resources

  • OpenID Connect(Link opens in a new window). Information in the Tableau Server Help virtually letting users sign in to the server using an OpenID Connect provider such as Google.

  • Kerberos(Link opens in a new window). A section in the Tableau Server Help that describes how to permit users sign in using Kerberos, as configured on the local network for your organization.

  • SAML(Link opens in a new window). Data in the Tableau Server Help about using SAML (Security Exclamation Markup Language) for single-sign.

  • Improve Server Performance(Link opens in a new window). Suggestions in the Tableau Server Assist for how to help melody Tableau Server performance, including how to balance the demands of user responsiveness and data freshness.