Hi everyone,
I have a SQL Server 2016 database hosted on an EC2 instance running Windows Server 2016. I am trying to connect Tableau Desktop 10.1 (installed on my laptop running Windows 10) to that database but I keep on receiving the same error message:
[Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 10.0]Named Pipes Provider: Could not open a connection to SQL Server [53]. [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 10.0]Login timeout expired [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 10.0]A network-related or instance-specific error has occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. Server is not found or not accessible. Check if instance name is correct and if SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. For more information see SQL Server Books Online. Unable to connect to the server "[MYSERVER]". Check that the server is running and that you have access privileges to the requested database.
I have two questions:
- in the "Server" field in Tableau, what do I need to enter exactly? So far, I have tried "IPAdress\ServerName" and "EC2InstanceName\ServerName" but it didn't work
- I also suspect that the issue may come from Windows Server's default security settings. Are there specific ports that I need to ensure are open? Any other security settings that I need to check or change on Windows Server?
My apologies if it sounds like a basic question but I already spent several hours looking it up online and I couldn't find anything helpful.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Fred
OK, I figured it out. I had two issues:
1. I was using the wrong Server name; the right way to connect is to enter the EC2 Instance's public IP Address in the server name field; if it doesn't work, try to add ",1433" after the IP address to specify the port (1433 is SQL Server's default port)
2. I had to create a SQL Server username and password, different from the username/password used to connect to the EC2 instance itself; that SQL Server user also needs to be granted a bunch of rights from within SQL Server
For those interested, the link below really helped me, especially the response from the user named kkcan (big thank you to her or him):
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=767301
Thanks,
Fred
