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How to Create and Run Tableau Bridge on Linux Containers

Tableau Bridge is now availble on Linux Containers. Yay! Now what does this mean and how do I build and run Linux Containers?

We will discuss the advantages of running Bridge on Linux Containers the steps to build them, and finally, we will provide some automation script ideas for monitoring and scaling Linux Bridge agents.

Tableau Bridge Today

Until recently, Tableau Bridge was only available as a Windows application running on a Windows VM. It supported only one bridge agent per Virtual or Physical Machine.


Advantages of Bridge in Containers

  1. Better Hardware Utilization: Linux containers are more efficient than Windows VMs, requiring only about 1/50th of the disk space.
  2. Ability to Spin Up Multiple Bridge Agents: With Linux Containers, it becomes easier to spin up multiple bridge agents on a single machine, improving scalability and resource utilization.
  3. Infrastructure Automation: Linux Containers enable easier automation of provisioning bridge agents and upgrading Tableau Bridge, the operating system, and database drivers.
  4. Scaling Automation: Linux Containers allow for the automated scaling of bridge agents, spinning up additional agents as needed and scaling down when the demand decreases.
  5. Container Orchestration Compatibility: Linux Containers can be executed inside Kubernetes, providing container orchestration capabilities for Tableau Bridge.
Additional addvantages are found in this presentation from Tableau Data Dev Days 2023.


Jan 2025 update
A updated tool for building and running Tableau Bridge Containers is available at 

https://github.com/tab-se/bridgectl


High-Level Steps to Build a Tableau Bridge on Linux Container

  1. Collect the required information: tableau cloud site_name, pool_id, user email, and PAT token.
  2. Download the Bridge Linux .rpm installer file.
  3. Download the required database drivers from the vendor websites.
  4. Define a Dockerfile and create a Bridge container image.
  5. Run the Bridge container with the collected information.


Step by Step Instructions

You can also refer to this github repository https://github.com/josephflu/datadevdays23 for code examples of how to build bridge on Linux containers. Please see the README for explanation of contents.

See also the official Tableau documentation for how to build a Tableau Bridge Linux container.


Automation Scripts

There are several ways you may want to automate your Bridge agents with scripts to

  • Build your bridge container
  • Scale run and scale up or down the number of running bridge Agents
  • Monitoring bridge status and health
  • Collect Tableau Cloud Metadata required to start up bridge agents

Some of these automation script examples are demonstrated in the github repo.

Conclusion

The future of Tableau Bridge lies in running on Linux Containers, offering better hardware utilization, scalability, and automation capabilities. By following the steps provided, you can build a Tableau Bridge on a Linux Container and leverage better automation for monitoring and scaling Bridge agents.


written by Joseph Fluckiger

Comments

Matias said…
How do oyu pass the database connection data, host, port, user and pass when using bridge within a container?
9:52 AM
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