Data Sources in Power BI
Power BI supports an extensive range of data sources. You can see all the available data connections by clicking on the Get Data button and then click on More option to see further as shown in the image below.
As you can see there are many options such as Files, Azure, Databases, and other online services like Facebook, salesforce objects etc. it further includes ODBC connections to other ODBC data sources. below is the given list of available data sources list:
- SQL Database
- Flat Files
- Blank Query
- OData Feed
- Azure Cloud Platform
- Online Services
- Oracle database
- IBM Db2 database
- IBM Informix database
- Other data sources such as Exchange, Hadoop etc.
Let;s understand the data sources in the image above. On the left side there is a category of all available data sources. On it, if you select 'All' in this way, you can see all the available data sources of the Power BI desktop.
- If you click on File then it shows you all the available file type and you can choose one and click on the connect button below to connect with that file.
- If you click on Database option, it shows you a list of all the available database to connect by clicking on the connect button.
To connect, you must provide the user name, password, and server name. Additionally, you can use the Advanced option to connect via a straight SQL query. Additional connecting options include Import and DirectQuer.
- You can also select Azure option, where you can connect to the database in Azure cloud. There are many other options you can select as shown in below image:
- In Power BI, you can also connect to various Online Services like Facebook, Google Analytics, Salesforce Objects, Microsoft Exchange Online, etc as shown in below image:
- In Other Option, you can opt for various options like Big data tools, python and R script, etc as shown below:
