Tableau Bridge is a client software specifically designed to connect Tableau Cloud to data located within a private, on-premises network. It runs on a machine behind the corporate firewall and establishes a secure, outbound connection to Tableau Cloud. This allows for two modes of data access: scheduled extract refreshes and, critically for this scenario, live connections. By facilitating live connections, Tableau Bridge enables real-time querying of on-premises databases directly from Tableau Cloud, providing up-to-the-minute data for analysis without requiring data migration. This is the officially recommended and most direct solution for this use case.

A. Tableau Prep Builder is a data preparation tool used to clean, shape, and combine data, primarily for creating static data extracts, not for enabling real-time connections.

C. Migrating all data to the cloud is a large-scale infrastructure project, not an immediate integration solution for accessing existing on-premises data in real-time.

D. Tableau Cloud, as a public cloud service, cannot natively and securely access data behind a private firewall; it requires a proxy agent like Tableau Bridge to facilitate this connection.

1. Tableau Cloud Help Documentation

"About Tableau Bridge": "Tableau Bridge is a proxy client that runs on a machine in your network and connects to data that is not publicly accessible from Tableau Cloud. Bridge enables both live connections and extract refreshes for data sources that connect to private network data." This source directly validates that Bridge is the tool for live connections to on-premises data.

Source: Tableau Help

"Use Bridge to Keep Data Fresh"

Section: "About Tableau Bridge".

2. Tableau Cloud Help Documentation

"Expand Data Freshness Options with Bridge": "For data sources that connect to private network data

Bridge can be used to maintain the freshness of that data in one of two ways: ... Or

by facilitating live connections." This reference confirms Bridge's capability for real-time access

which is a key requirement of the question.

Source: Tableau Help

"Expand Data Freshness Options with Bridge"

Section: "How Bridge keeps data fresh".

3. Tableau Cloud Help Documentation

"Plan Your Bridge Deployment": This section details the network and security architecture

explaining that Bridge initiates an outbound connection from the private network to Tableau Cloud. This clarifies why Tableau Cloud's "native" capabilities are insufficient and why a tool like Bridge is necessary.

Source: Tableau Help

"Plan Your Bridge Deployment"

Section: "Network access".