Tableau AWS Deployment: Best Practices and 6 Easy Steps

Data Visualization tools are becoming more popular in the market day by day and their efficiency to gain customer insights is always being put to the test. These tools help organizations understand their customer needs and help them survive in a competitive market. One such collaborative BI (Business Intelligence) software that allows you to visualize your data and become more data-driven is Tableau. AWS (Amazon Web Services) provides an on-demand Cloud-Computing platform and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. Leveraging the power of Tableau AWS makes Data Analysis a lot easier.

Tableau AWS Deployment is the process of integrating the features of Tableau in a Cloud-Computing environment like AWS. This enables users to gather valuable customer insights from multiple data sources on the go. Tableau AWS Deployment is a relatively new technology whose main goal is to combine the advantages of both Tableau and AWS seamlessly so that all types of users can leverage it.

In this article, you will learn about the best practices for Tableau AWS Deployment and 6 easy steps to set it up. You will also be given an overview of Tableau and AWS so that you can better understand these technologies. Read along to learn about Tableau AWS Deployment and how you can set it up easily.

Prerequisites

• An AWS Account.
• A Tableau Server License.
• An Amazon EC2 Key Pair.
• Working knowledge of Cloud applications and databases.

What is Tableau?

Tableau is a BI and Data Visualization platform founded in 2003 by Christian Chabot, Pat Hanrahan, and Chris Stolte. It became immensely popular as every organization wanted to gather valuable insights from multiple data sources and collaborate with the employees of the organization simultaneously. Visualization is a great way to analyze a huge amount of data and that is exactly what Tableau does. 

Tableau has helped leading organizations across industries cut down their processing time and make their business more data-driven while ensuring flexibility, security, and reliability in all their processes.

Key Features of Tableau

Tableau has a wide range of features which makes it a better choice over other BI tools. Some of these are as follows:

• It has a great number of integrations that you can choose from.
• Tableau has a special drag & drop feature.
• It allows you to create interactive dashboards and share them with users outside of the organization as well.
• It transforms your questions or queries into visualizations.
• Tableau can be used on any platform, be it mobile, web, or desktop.
• It supports building a diverse set of visualizations that can assist you in exploring your data.

With Tableau AWS Deployment, you get the flexible features of Tableau and the dynamic nature of the AWS Cloud platform, all in one package.

What is AWS?

AWS or Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand Cloud-Computing services and APIs to individuals, companies, and government bodies, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. It was founded in 2002 and provides a variety of basic abstract technical infrastructure and distributed computing building blocks and tools. 

The AWS technology is implemented on Server Farms throughout the world and is maintained by the Amazon subsidiary. The fees are based on various parameters companies use including their Usage, Hardware, Operating System, Networking features chosen, and many more. 

Key Features of AWS

AWS houses a wide range of features that make it one of the most popular cloud platforms in the world:

• AWS provides a flexible environment to help users choose their Programming Languages, Models, and Operating Systems so that they do not need to learn new skills to adopt technologies.
• It is cost-effective as it helps you access your resources more effectively and use them only when required. 
• It can scale computing resources up or down when demand increases or decreases respectively.
• It is highly secure and provides a scalable Cloud-Computing platform that provides customers with end-to-end security and end-to-end privacy.
• It has a high elasticity as it implements short-term jobs, mission-critical jobs, and the jobs repeated at regular intervals.

With Tableau AWS Deployment, you can visualize your data effectively and monitor it regularly on the go.

What is Tableau AWS Deployment?

Tableau AWS Deployment is the process of integrating Tableau in a Cloud-Computing environment of AWS. The Tableau server is installed on an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Microsoft Windows Server, CentOS, or Ubuntu Server that allows users to gather all the data from the multiple data sources and generate insights from it by feeding that data to the go-to Tableau.

What are the Best Practices for Tableau AWS Deployment?

Now that you have an overview of both Tableau and AWS, this section focuses on the best practices for implementing Tableau AWS Deployment. For Tableau AWS Deployment to be successful on all fronts, you need to follow these best practices:

• Read the Tableau Server Deployment Plan.
• Ensure that you have an AWS account, an Amazon EC2 Key Pair, a Tableau Server License, and Storage on your Amazon EC2 Key Pair. It is also good to have a Domain managed by Amazon Route 53, an SSL certificate managed by the AWS Certificate Manager in the region where you are deploying the Tableau Server.
• Read the Tableau Server Security Hardening Checklist.
• If you are new to the AWS Cloud environment, use the AWS Free Tier to gain some experience in the environment before you deploy your Tableau Server on AWS.
• Read about the Network Topology used by AWS and how to architect it.
• Use an Amazon Elastic Network Interface to provide a static MAC Address for your Amazon EC2 instance.

By keeping these best practices in mind, you can deploy Tableau AWS successfully. A Model Cloud BI architecture of Tableau AWS Deployment is shown below.

6 Easy Steps to Set up Tableau AWS Deployment

You can set up Tableau AWS Deployment by following these 6 simple steps:

• Step 1: Creating a VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
• Step 2: Configuring Network & Security
• Step 3: Launching an Amazon EC2 Instance
• Step 4: Creating an Elastic IP Address for the VPC 
• Step 5: Logging onto Amazon EC2
• Step 6: Installing Tableau Server

Step 1: Creating a VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)

The first step to set up Tableau AWS Deployment is to create a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and add an Amazon Elastic Network instance to it. This is done to provide a static MAC address for your Amazon EC2 instance.

You can do this by signing into AWS and navigating to the Amazon VPC Console and using the Region Selector to choose your location. Once that is done, go to the Resources section and start the VPC Wizard to set up the VPC Configuration.

Create your VPC on a Single Subnet and give it a name. All the other settings can be in their default value.

Step 2: Configuring Network & Security

The next step of deploying Tableau AWS is to limit the traffic reaching your VPC. You can do this by limiting traffic to 3 standard ports- HTTP, HTTPS, and RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). To do this, navigate to your Amazon EC2 instance and use the Region Selector to choose the location for your VPC.

Access the Navigation Pane and create a Security Group. You can add a name and description to it as well. Next, access the VPC field, choose your VPC, click the Inbound tab, click on Add Rule and then in the Type List choose HTTP(80). In the Source column, choose My IP for every rule. This effectively reduces any inbound traffic on your VPC. In case you want to limit a range of IP addresses, choose Custom and then enter the range in CIDR notation.

Repeat this process for the HTTPS(443) and RDP(3389) ports as well. Once you finish that, click on Create.

Step 3: Launching an Amazon EC2 Instance

After creating your VPC, the next step to deploying Tableau AWS is to launch an Amazon EC2 instance. To do this, navigate to the Amazon EC2 console and use the Region Selector to choose the location you created your VPC. Under the Create Instance section, click on Launch Instance. Select an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that meets the requirements of your Tableau Server. Next, choose the Instance Type and configure its details. Once that is done, configure your Security Group by choosing the Security Group you created in the previous step.

Next, review all your settings once again and if you are satisfied with them, launch your Amazon EC2 instance. An important point to note is that when you are prompted to launch the Amazon EC2 instance, create a new Key Pair and save it as a “.pem” file and store it in a safe place. This Key Pair is needed to create a password that you can use to log onto the Amazon EC2 instance.

When you finished creating and downloading your Key Pair, click on Launch Instances and select your instance in this list and copy the instance ID.

Step 4: Creating an Elastic IP Address for the VPC

Once your Amazon EC2 instance is launched, the next step to deploying Tableau AWS is to create and allocate a static public IP address for your VPC. To do this, navigate to the Amazon VPC Console and use the Region Selector to choose the region where you created your VPC. In the Navigation pane, click on Elastic IDs and click on Allocate New address and choose Allocate. A dialog box will then appear, click the Elastic IP Address. 

Then go to the Action menu and click on the Associate address. Next, in the Resource Type, select Instance. In the Instance drop-down list, select your Instance and click on Associate. Finally, copy the new IP address.

Step 5: Logging onto Amazon EC2

To deploy and run Tableau AWS, you need to install Tableau Server on Amazon EC2 Instance or Instances you’ve configured. To do this, navigate to the Amazon VPC Console and use the Region Selector to choose the region where you launched your instance. In the EC2 Dashboard, click Instances. Locate your Instance and click on the check box. Next, go to the Actions menu and click on Connect. A dialog box will then appear, click on Download Remote Desktop File to create a “.rdp” file that is designed to connect to the instance. This file is configured to connect to the public IP address you created in the previous step.

Next, click on Get Password and select the “.pem” file for the Key Pair created in Step 3. This is the private key of your Key Pair. Once this is done, click on Decrypt Password. When the password is displayed, take note of the Public DNS Address, Username, and Password. Next, double click on the “.rdp” file you downloaded earlier and choose Connect. Finally, enter the Username and Password you noted down before and click on OK. You can safely ignore any warnings and click Yes to connect.

Step 6: Installing Tableau Server

The final step in Tableau AWS Deployment is to install Tableau Server on the Amazon EC2 Instance you configured. The installation steps on an EC2 instance are the same for any computer. For more details on the installation, you can refer to the Install and Configure Section.

 After you install Tableau Server and create a Tableau Server administrator account and sign in, you can add users. In case you want to run a cluster of Tableau Servers, install additional Tableau Servers on other Amazon EC2 Instances. You can get more details on this, by clicking on this link.

That’s it! You have successfully deployed Tableau AWS for your organization!

Conclusion

This article provided you with a comprehensive guide on setting up Tableau AWS Deployment in 6 simple steps. It also provided an overview of Tableau and AWS and also highlighted the best practices for deploying Tableau on AWS. Overall, Tableau AWS Deployment is a relatively new technology that helps companies get the best of both tools. It can be a valuable asset for any organization as it helps them better understand their data in a robust, secure, and flexible environment.

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FAQ on Tableau AWS deployment