Can we install PowerPivot for SharePoint on a SQL cluster?

Question

We are going to deploy SharePoint 2013 with PowerPivot for SharePoint (installed from SQL Server media). According to what I've read out there for a small or medium farm, the recommendation is to install PowerPivot for SharePoint on
every SharePoint application server in the farm. However, accoding to the licensing doc I've pasted below, PowerPivot can be run outside the SharePoint farm. We are going with SQL Server 2012 Enterprise edition. PowerPivot requires a SQL
Server license for each server. To save money on licenisng, can we install PowerPivot for SharePoint on the 2 SQL Server cluster nodes (as a separate instance of course)?
Example License Topologies and Costs for SQL Server 2012 Self-Service Business Intelligence
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn305848(v=sql.110).aspx
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Answer 1

Hi Vincent,
PowerPivot for SharePoint is an Analysis Services instance in tabular mode. This
whitepaper mentions that clustering Analysis Services in SharePoint-integrated mode is not supported (page 8 under SSAS Server Modes.) You can, however, install it as a standalone
instance on the nodes of the cluster and let SharePoint handle the load balancing.
My apologies for the confusion on installing the SharePoint binaries on the PowerPivot instance. You don't need to install the SharePoint binaries if it is outside of the SharePoint farm. I was looking at my build documentation where I have both Reporting
Services and PowerPivot on the same machine with the same reason - reduce licensing cost - and similar to the 3-tier topology but with all of the service application and content databases on the database tier.
Edwin Sarmiento SQL Server MVP | Microsoft Certified Master
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