Executive Computer Consulting Corporation -- SQL Server™ 2000 Reporting Services Installation Guide

Reporting Services Components

There are three main Reporting Services server components:

Server Layer
Application Layer
Data Layer

Figure 1: Reporting Services architecture
Figure 1: Reporting Services architecture

Data source processing, report rendering, and delivery are all implemented using components that are resident on Report Server. These extensions use published application programming interfaces (APIs).

Reporting Services includes a set of tools that enable you to use the product without modification. However, because Report Server is fully programmable, you can replace existing tools with custom applications that you create. Examples of custom applications that you might want to create include applications to:

• View reports
• Design reports
• Manage reports

In addition to writing custom applications, you can create custom extensions to extend the data processing, rendering, security, and delivery capabilities of a report server.

Installation Planning

Choosing a Reporting Services Edition
Determining Virtual Directory Names
Choosing a Licensing Mode
Understanding System Requirements

Choosing a Reporting Services Edition

First you must determine which edition of Reporting Services to install:

Standard Edition
Enterprise Edition
Developer Edition
Evaluation Edition

Editions vary by:

Licensing Restrictions
The Features They Support

Standard Edition
Standard Edition is designed for a small organization with basic reporting needs. Choose Standard Edition if you do not need to support a large number of users, and do not need to support the dynamic distribution of reports to many users.

Do not deploy Standard Edition if you plan to implement any of the following features:

Clustered report servers (that is, report servers implemented in a Network Load Balancing cluster)
Security extensions, including support for custom or forms-based authentication
Data-driven subscriptions
Support for more than four processors

Enterprise Edition
For large organizations, you should consider installing Enterprise Edition. Enterprise Edition is designed for servers that must meet the high-volume reporting requirements of a large organization. Enterprise Edition supports all Reporting Services features, including data-driven subscriptions that derive recipient information at run time from a database, custom security models, and server clusters for (Web server Network Load Balancing or SQL Server failover). It also supports installation on a computer equipped with four or more processors.

Developer Edition
Developer Edition is designed for developers who want to integrate or extend the report server for use with a custom application, or who want to build custom tools. Developer Edition runs on the largest variety of operating systems. Developer Edition supports the same features as Enterprise Edition, but it is licensed for use as a test and development system, and is not suited for production servers.

Evaluation Edition
Evaluation Edition is designed to allow the user to evaluate all of the features of Reporting Services. Evaluation Edition is identical to Developer Edition; however, Evaluation Edition is licensed for evaluation purposes, and ceases to function after 120 days.

Determining Virtual Directory Names
Reports are accessed through virtual directories on the report server. Before running Reporting Services Setup, determine how you want to name your Reporting Services virtual directories. During setup you are prompted to configure the virtual directories for both Report Server and Report Manager. Virtual directory names must comply with IIS naming conventions. For more information about IIS naming conventions, see the IIS documentation.

Note You can access IIS documentation on a computer running IIS by typing http://localhost/iisHelp in your browser address bar and pressing ENTER.

Here are the URLs created for Report Manager and Report Server when you select the default virtual directory names during setup.

For The Report Server:
                                http://<server>/ReportServer

For The Report Manager
                                    http://<server>/Reports

Note To access reports directly by URL, you need to use the fully qualified URL of the report on Report Server as follows:

            http://<server>/ReportServer?/<folder name>/<report name>

Choosing a Licensing Mode
Reporting Services is included in your SQL Server 2000 license. You must have a valid SQL Server license for each computer that has a SQL Server 2000 component (such as Reporting Services) installed. For example, the computer running Reporting Services requires a SQL Server license. If the report server database is located remotely, a separate license is required for the remote computer running SQL Server. You do not need a license to install Report Designer, the administrative tools, samples, or product documentation.

During setup, choose one of the following two licensing modes:

• Per seat licensing

• Per processor licensing

Per seat licensing requires a license for the computer running Reporting Services, as well as a client access license (CAL) for each user or client device that accesses reports either directly or indirectly (including the Report Designer).

Per processor licensing is required for extranet or internet Installations. It requires a single license for each CPU in the operating system instance running Reporting Services. This license does not require any device or CALs.

Understanding System Requirements
Reporting Services hardware and software requirements are described in this section. You can install Reporting Services on the same computer as the SQL Server database, or on a separate computer. You can use the client component of Reporting Services on the same computer as the other components or on separate client computers.

Server Requirements
Hardware, software, and security requirements are outlined here for Report Server, Report Manager, and report server database.

Hardware Requirements
The minimum hardware requirements for installing Reporting Services in a standard Installation model are listed below.

Computer processor: PC with an Intel or compatible Pentium II 500 MHz or higher processor, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB minimum recommended, Hard disk space (per component):

Report Server (includes Report Manager): 50 MB
Report Designer: 30 MB
Microsoft .NET Framework: 100 MB
Samples, AdventureWorks database, and Books Online: 145 MB

Note: Remember that hardware recommendations vary considerably, depending on how you intend to use the product. If you are using an enterprise Installation model, as described later in Enterprise Installation Models, your hardware needs increase significantly.

The following guidelines are general and do not address all of the factors that go into capacity planning, but they can help you plan an enterprise Reporting Services Installation:

If you plan to distribute a high volume of reports, use a fast dual- or quad-processor computer to host Report Server components. If additional processing capability is required, increase the amount of RAM on the report server and consider the following:

The first step you can take to scale out your Reporting Services implementation is to use a dedicated SQL Server instance to host the report server database. For more information, see "Using a Remote SQL Server Instance to Host a Report Server Database" later in this guide.
The next you can take to scale out Reporting Services is to implement Network Load Balancing in an IIS server cluster (that is, implement a Web farm).
If reports are mission critical, deploy the report server database in a server cluster configured for failover. This reduces the risk of reporting down time.
In a high-volume reporting scenario, it is the mainly the computer (or computers) hosting the report server database that benefits from increased available hard disk space, not the report server itself.

In general, the computer hosting the report server database requires the most available disk space. Report servers themselves benefit the most from increased RAM and processor speed.

Note: Some Windows operating systems, such as Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, can provide more than 2 gigabytes (GB) of memory to applications. If you are running Reporting Services on one of these operating systems, Reporting Services can take advantage of that amount of memory.

Software Requirements
This section provides information to assist you in preparing component servers for Reporting Services installation. It is recommended that you review this section before running Reporting Services Setup.

Report Server
Before running Reporting Services Setup, use the checklist below to ensure that the computer serving as the report server has the appropriate software components enabled or configured.

Report Server software requirements Check List

1. Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) service - Required

Verify that the startup type for the service is set to Automatic or Manual. To view service state, point to Administrative Tools in Control Panel and click Services. Right-click Distributed Transaction Coordinator, and then click Properties.

2. Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.6 or higher - Required

3. IIS 5.0 or later1 - Required

Verify that the default website is accessible through http://<server>.
The default website IP address must be mapped to (All Unassigned). To verify this setting, open the Default Web Site Properties dialog box in Internet Information Services. The IP address is specified on the Web Site tab.
IWAM_<computer> account must be enabled.

4. Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 - Required

If the .NET Framework 1.1 is not installed, Setup installs it.

5. ASP .NET - Required

Ensure that ASP.NET 1.1 is installed and registered with IIS. See "ASP.NET Configuration" in "Preparing to Install" of SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services Books Online

6. Connection to SQL Server 2000 SP3a instance - Required

7. User account credentials - Required

You must have appropriate credentials necessary to log on and perform the database creation on the SQL Server instance hosting Report Server database.

8. SSL - Not Required

If you select Use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) connections during setup, Setup checks to see if an SSL certificate is present on the computer. If not, you must either install SSL and continue the setup, or select to not use SSL at this time and configure Report Server for SSL later.

9. SMTP server - Not Required

Optional, for e-mail delivery of reports.

Note Servers running Windows Server 2003 must be configured as application servers before you install Reporting Services on them.

Report Manager
Report Manager is an ASP.NET application that is installed by Setup on the same computer as Report Server. Installing Report Manager is optional. If you use custom report viewing and management tools, for example, you do not need this component.

Report Server database
The computer hosting the report server database must be running SQL Server 2000 SP3a. The ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB databases created during setup are used together. A connection between a report server and a report server database is established during setup. If you rename or move the databases after setup, you must run the Rsconfig.exe utility to update the connection information.

Note. Important Do not delete the report server databases, modify their structure, or create applications that interact directly with these databases, either during or after Installation.

Security Requirements
To successfully and securely deploy Reporting Services, you must be familiar with the accounts used to install Reporting Services.

Note Reporting Services uses a role-based security model. However, security for Reporting Services is multi-layered.

Account Requirements
The credentials required to run Setup are different from the account credentials configured during setup and used at run time. This section describes credentials needed to:

Run Setup and install the report server database.
Start the Report Server Windows service.
Configure report server database access.
Configure IIS and the Report Server Web service.

Figure 2: User credentials required by Setup vs. credentials used at Reporting Services run time

User credentials required by Setup vs. credentials used at Reporting Services run time

Secure Socket Layer Configuration
When you install Reporting Services, one of the first things you configure in Setup is whether or not to use SSL to control access to the Reporting Services and encrypt the data and credentials transported over network. For security reasons, you should choose to use SSL. For detailed information about using and configuring SSL for Reporting Services, see "Using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services" (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsql2k/html/sslsetup.asp). This article also contains information about how to install a Root Certificate Authority and how you can request Certificates to secure your Reporting Services Web site.

Client Requirements
This section describes the client computer requirements for viewing and designing reports.

Viewing Reports
The client computer used to view reports must be running a supported Web browser. When the client requests a report directly from Report Server, either using a URL or Report Manager, Report Server implements the HTML rendering extension by default. Depending on the client's browser, the HTML rendering extension produces reports in either HTML 4.0 or HTML 3.2. Supported browsers for HTML 4.0 include:
•Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows versions 5.5 and 6.•Netscape Navigator for Windows version 7.1.HTML 3.2 is delivered to all other browsers supporting HTML. This includes earlier versions of the browsers mentioned above, as well as Internet Explorer for Pocket PC.
The HTML rendering extension supports Microsoft Office Web Components (OWC). OWC is a specific type of Microsoft ActiveX® control that provides interactive chart and Microsoft PivotTable® controls. Various report rendering formats might have different requirements. For example, a client must use Adobe Acrobat Reader to view PDF files and Microsoft Excel to access reports in XLS format. Similarly, you must have Microsoft Office Web Components installed on the client computer in order to use the HTML with Office Web Components rendering format.
Note Various report rendering formats might have different requirements for client computers where reports are viewed. For example, the Portable Document Format (PDF) rendering extension requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view reports in PDF. You are not required to run any Adobe software on the report server in order to render reports in PDF.

Using Report Designer
Report Designer requires Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET 2003 or another product that provides the Visual Studio 2003 shell (such as Visual Basic .NET 2003 or Visual C# .NET 2003) and MDAC 2.6 or higher.

Installation Scenarios
Reporting Services components can run on a single server or on multiple servers, allowing for a variety of scalable, flexible implementations. This section describes various possible Installation scenarios.

If your organization is small, the "Standard Installation Model" section contains the most appropriate Installation scenario for your organization. If your organization is medium or large, you should review the scenarios in the "Enterprise Installation Models" section before proceeding to Reporting Services installation.

In general, find the scenario here that best fits your environment and objectives, then use the information presented here to help you design your Installation plan.

Standard Installation Model
This section describes a simple Installation model of Reporting Services. The guidelines here are suited for small organizations and organizations implementing an intranet-only Installation of Reporting Services. Use a standard Installation model if you are deploying the Standard Edition of Reporting Services, evaluating the product, or developing an application using the Reporting Services platform. If your implementation of Reporting Services requires accessing reports from a client on the Internet or setting up multiple Web servers for reporting purposes, see "Enterprise Installation Models" later in this guide. The standard Installation model is not intended for organizations that have high-availability or high-volume reporting requirements.

Small organizations often can achieve acceptable report processing performance using a single server Installation.

A primary consideration in choosing where to host the report server database is disk space availability. If you expect your reports to grow substantially in the future, consider deploying Reporting Services using a remote instance of SQL Server to host the report server database, as shown in Figure 4. The remote report server database must be in the same domain as the report server or in a trusted domain with the report server.

Enterprise Installation Models

Server Clusters

Large organizations with high-volume reporting needs will probably choose to distribute the report processing load across multiple servers to increase reporting availability and provide failover capabilities. Reporting Services supports server clustering as follows:

A report server implemented in a Windows Network Load Balancing cluster (or Web farm) consists of multiple report servers that share a report server database (or share a cluster of report server databases). Typically you specify the report server nodes participating in a cluster during Reporting Services Setup.

Note You must use additional software to set up and manage a server cluster. The Microsoft Cluster service included in the Windows 2000 Server operating system provides Network Load Balancing and failover capabilities. Microsoft Application Center also provides Web server load balancing. Or, you can use third-party load-balancing software.

You can implement cluster technology for your report servers, report server databases, or both:

Deploying Report Servers in a Cluster

If you are deploying a new report server to an existing Web farm, that report server requires credentials to connect to a report server that already exists in the Web farm. You can specify Windows credentials, or connect using the security context of the user running Setup. These credentials need to have administrator permissions on the computer that is already part of the Web farm.

Deploying Report Server Databases in a Cluster

You can implement your report server database in a SQL Server failover cluster. Whether you use a single database or a database cluster, the configuration you use is transparent to a report server.

Internet-Accessible Report Servers

You can also deploy a report server that is accessible from the Internet. To implement access to a report server over the Internet, you modify the Rswebapplication.config file on the report server, as described the "Deploying a Report Server for Internet Access" section of "Enterprise Installation Model" of SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services.