Connecting Nexus with Power BI

This tutorial shows how data from Nexus can easily be visualized in Power BI. The steps shown are for Power BI Desktop, but are essentially the same for Power BI Service.

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To connect Power BI to Nexus, you need a Nexus account with Expert privileges.

Step 1: Make sure Power BI trusts the SSL certificate from Nexus

Download the AWS RDS root certificate and save it so you can reference it later. In this example, we save the file as: C:\aws-rds-global-bundle.pem

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If you want all applications (such as Power BI) to automatically trust the certificate without specifying the path, you can install the same .pem certificate in the 'Windows Trusted Root Store': open certmgr.msc, go to 'Trusted Root Certification Authorities' > 'Certificates'.

Step 2: Install the PostgreSQL ODBC driver.

Download a recent installer here, for example: REL-17_00_0006-mimalloc/psqlodbc-setup.exe, and run the installation.

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Only use the 32-bit version if you are using 32-bit Power BI, which is rare.

Verify that the PostgreSQL ODBC driver is installed: Open ODBC Data Sources (64-bit) > Go to the Drivers tab > Ensure that ‘PostgreSQL Unicode(x64)’ is listed.

Step 3: Create the ODBC connection between Power BI and Nexus

Open Power BI > Get data from another source > search for 'ODBC'

Enter the connection string:

Example

Make sure to use the correct 'SSL Root Cert' path (to the .pem file you just downloaded).

Moreover, update 'Server' to the secret credential provided in the Expert account confirmation email. It looks like 'nexus-database.***amazonaws.com

Driver={PostgreSQL Unicode(x64)};SSL Mode=verify-full;SSL Root Cert=<correct this C:\global-bundle.pem>;Server=<correct this nexus-database.***.amazonaws.com>;Port=5432;Database=geodata_cache;

Enter your Nexus username and password, then select 'Connect'

That's it, you're connected!