Tableau architecture shows that Desktop connects to tableau server (using gateway) and then to data server which are on tableau server. My question is do tableau client has to talk to tableau server? Can't I just install tableau desktop and connect to required database (even hosted on cloud)?

Regards, G.

• There are multiple approaches for connecting to data in Tableau.

• Without Tableau Server being involved at all, Tableau Desktop can indeed connect directly to a database and this is the main approach.

• Tableau Server can also be chosen to be used as an effective proxy to your database, and have multiple desktop and server clients connect that way. There are advantages for governance and performance to that approach in some cases.

• You can mix and match approaches for different data sources, and there are some other middle ground approaches such as to store an extract on Tableau Server, which acts conceptually like too fast read-only materialized view which you can then refresh on a schedule of your choices.

Tableau has the following products:

1. Tableau Desktop
2. Tableau Server
3. Tableau Online
4. Tableau Reader (free)
5. Tableau Public (free)

My question is do tableau client has to talk to tableau server?

• The "Tableau Client" that you refer to could be either a web browser or Tableau Reader. The web browser has to talk to Tableau Server, but Tableau Reader requires the extracted Tableau Workbook.

Can't I just install tableau desktop and connect to required database (even hosted on cloud)?

• You can, but you will lose measures, dimensions, filters, formatting, sets etc. which is local to the cloud tableau sheet.
• You can download workbook in tbxw format to play with