The document provides an in-depth overview of best practices and technical guidelines for deploying and managing SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). It covers topics such as security, backup/restore processes, performance optimization, and infrastructure considerations for both new users and those with existing deployments. Additionally, the document includes resources for further learning and troubleshooting, emphasizing the importance of careful planning and configuration in SSRS implementations.

1. New England Data Camp v1.0
It is all about the data!
Denny Lee, Senior Program Manager
SQL Customer Advisory Team - Microsoft Corporation

2.  Learn how to ensure a predictable Reporting Services
deployment in your environment
 Learn about the following as relates to Reporting Services
 Backup/restore
 Security/authorization
 Scale/performance/high availability
 Upgrade
 Approach
 Provide the technical knowledge needed to make sound decisions
 Provide lessons learned from Real Customers
 Thanks to Lukasz Pawlowski - SSRS

3.  Works on the largest, most complex SQL Server projects worldwide
 US: NASDAQ, Progressive, Premier Bankcard, Hilton Hotels
 Europe: Barclays Capital, Danske Bank, McLaren, Bwin
 Asia/Pacific: Korea Telecom, GMarket, Japan Railways East, China Mobile
 LATAM: Banco Itau, Oi
 Strategic ISVs: SAP, Siebel, JDE, PeopleSoft, GE Healthcare, SunGard, Siemens,
Dynamics and more
 Drives product requirements back into SQL Server from our customers and
ISVs
 Shares deep technical content with SQL Server community
 SQLCAT.com
 http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlcat
 http://blogs.msdn.com/mssqlisv
 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb331794.aspx

4.  IT Pros who are new to Reporting Services
 Examples of how to use Reporting Services
 Understanding architecture & deployments
 Provide the knowledge building blocks needed to understand
Reporting Services
 IT Pros with existing deployment of Reporting Services
 Make SSRS more efficient and predictable
 Learn from others
 Validate your work
 Fill in any gaps in your knowledge of how SSRS works
 Slide deck that is a valuable reference tool
 Contains many tips & tricks
 Detailed understanding of SSRS = sleep better at night

5. • Reporting Services 101
• Backup/Restore
• Security
• Monitoring and Planning
• Deployment Topology
• Upgrade
• Tribal Knowledge

6.  People lack understanding of BI solutions
 Need to understand key requirements of the user
base
▪ E.g. ‘…they replaced pivots with SSRS, and then stumbled
during deployment…’
 Business Intelligence quick guide
 Managed & Ad-hoc Reports = Reporting Services
 Dashboards = Windows SharePoint Services
▪ Use SSRS, Excel Services, PPS to provide content
 Scorecards = Performance Point Server (PPS)
 Analysts = Pivots = Excel Services

8. SharePoint
Report SSMS
Viewer Report Viewer
Web Part
Web Service Proxy
Data Sources
Web Services & URL Access
Security Services
Report Server
Report Engine
Output Formats Data Processing Security
Delivery Targets
(E-mail, SharePoint, Custom
Rendering Scheduling & Delivery
Custom Custom Report Item RDCE
Visualization
Customized RDL
SQL Server Catalog

9. Client Application Report Server Report Catalog
Publishing
CreateReport
RDL RDL RDL
Compiled Compiled
Definition Definition
Managed Managed
Properties Properties

10. Client Application Report Server Report Catalog
RSDB
Report
RDL
Metadata
Compiled
Definition
Managed
Properties

11. Client Application Report Server Report Catalog
“Get & Run
Report” RSDB
Report
Compiled
Definition
Metadata
Session
Word/Excel/
Execution
HTML/PDF RSTempDB
Snapshot
Report
Data Session
Report Data

12. WMI Report Server Report Catalog
Setup
SSRS WMI
Provider
SSRS
Configuration
Manager
Config Files
IIS/HTTP.SYS

13. Client Application Report Server Report Catalog
Symmetric
Key (SK) RSDB
PubK1(SK)
UserName
Password Secret
Connection String SK(Secret)
Service
Credentials (C1)
Public Key, Private Key
(PubK1) (PriK1)

15. Importance Items to Backup
Critical • Report Server Databases
• Symmetric Key
• SharePoint Databases
• Custom Extensions
Important • Configuration Files
• RSTempDB
• IIS Settings for RS 2005
Nice to Have • RDLs
• SSL Certificates
Standard backup/restore SQL database techniques
Don’t forget to backup your SharePoint databases as well!

16.  Configuration files
Rsreportserver.config Rssvrpolicy.config
Rswebapplication.config Rsmgrpolicy.config
Reportingservicesservice.exe.config Machine.config
Web.config (for RS & RM)
 Recover by COPYING settings into default .config files
 Use RS Configuration Tool or WMI to recover:
▪ RSDB connection information (stored encrypted)
▪ URL & SSL Settings (stored also in HTTP.SYS)
 Symmetric Key
 Encrypts report data source settings
 Use Report Services Configuration Tool or rskeymgmt.exe to
backup/restore
 Keep backup in secure place and do not forget the password!

18.  Start with focusing on data security
 Do not expose sensitive data in data centers
 Expose the minimum set of data required
 Audit data access
 Report data sources
 Be careful which credentials are stored in report data sources
▪ Use read-only accounts!
▪ We wary of unnecessary use of Windows Integrated
▪ Review credentials options to ensure report authors are not abusing user’s credentials
 Use Shared Data Sources
▪ Control connection strings & credentials
▪ Minimize management overhead
 Data level security
 Use Kerberos delegation if you need end to end data security
 Use User!UserId in reports to identify the user within a report
 Parameters are not a security mechanism!

19.  Use SSL
 Protects report contents & credentials
 Performance is not an issue
 Limit which machines can access your server
 Consider IPSec
 Block undesired IP address ranges
 Do not use Anonymous
 Identify the abusive users and prevent future abuse
 Minimally have one user id for each network entry point
 Proxies and Authentication Persistence do not mix
 Disable authentication persistence if using proxies
 Watch out for common cross server authentication issues
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/871179
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861 (Detailed blog post)

20.  User authentication
 Kerberos is better than NTLM
 Kerberos requires setting SPNs and is harder to configure
 Authentication is extensible
 ASP.NET Forms authentication sample
 Any custom authentication scheme is available
 Consider infrastructure solutions like Forefront or IAG
▪ Implement various authentication protocols (e.g. SSO)
 Authorization
 Use Active Directory groups to minimize churn as users
 SSRS Security Roles are customizable - make them relevant to your user base
 Authorization is extensible
 Credentials – Lowest Privilege Possible
 Service Account should be a low privilege domain account
 Set the Unattended Execution Account
 Allow users only the minimal permissions they need
 Don’t manage reports from the SSRS server box…

21.  Auditing Report Access
 Use the Execution Log Table (ELT)
 Copy information from ELT to your own databases
 Stores the user, report & parameter combination as well as
success/failure
 Auditing all operations
 Use SSRS Trace Logs with Verbose setting
 Data Access use data source auditing
 Save off Log Files to secure location
 LogFile location is configurable is SSRS
 Use a write only location
 Archive log files so they are not automatically deleted

23.  Keep configuration settings in synch
 Tools like IIS Manager or Service Control Manager easily
get settings out of synch
 Use SSRS Configuration Manager or WMI Provider instead
 Keep a meticulous backup of IIS & ASP.NET settings that
work
 Extensions & Custom Assemblies
 Deploying extensions is tricky – back up config files
 Trust authors; do security reviews
 Moving reports between servers
 RS Scripter is widely used
 Log Files
▪ Execution Log, Trace Log, HTTP Log, Application Event Logs

24.  Understand your scenarios and reports
 Scenarios are defined by user personas & usage patterns
 Reports are either test reports or actual reports
 Tests should isolate Report Server from other systems
 Reports can overload underlying data source
 Determine which reports are most impactful
 Optimize these reports – retrieve only required data
 Execute Performance Tests – before production!
 Using Visual Studio 2005 to Perform Load Testing on a SQL Server 2005
Reporting Services Report Server
 Database tools (SQL Profiler, sqlcmd scripts, SQL Scaler, etc.)
 Synthetic test tools (e.g. VSTS, Precise Insight, etc.)
 Use appropriate execution options for reports
 Reports run “live” by default
 Enable caching for frequently run reports
 Execution Snapshots are often overlooked
▪ Can be scheduled to run in off peak hours

25.  Monitoring Report Server Performance
 Task Manager, Event Viewer, Performance console
 Record performance numbers for later follow up
 Common Analysis
▪ Report by user type – e.g. is the CEO’s report running quickly?
▪ Rate of failed reports and aggregate # of failures
▪ Low usage reports should be retired
▪ Poor performing reports should be optimized
▪ Aborted or internal errors
 Windows Performance Counters
 CPU, Memory, disk space
 Performance Counters
▪ CPU (total & service usage)
▪ I/O (page faults, read/write on disk)
▪ Memory utilization (total & service)
▪ Network I/O (read/write, send/receive, bandwidth)
 RS Performance Objects
 MSRS 2008 Web Service: monitors RS performance
 MSRS 2008 Windows Service: monitors scheduled operations and report delivery
 ReportServer:Service: monitor HTTP-related events and memory management (new)
 SharePoint Integrated Mode: monitor RS events in SharePoint integrated mode
 System Center Operations Manager

26.  Report Catalog (RSDB) contains ExecutionLog and
ExecutionLog2
 Which reports are long running?
 Subscriptions/Interactive?
 Live Data or Snapshots?
 Balanced?
 Patterns for a report
 Health of Reports
 Server Management Report Samples
 Populates separate tables / database
 Provides SSIS package to extract and populate data
 Follow instructions to setup schema and create job
 Provides three reports for you to view report activity

28.  Most common deployment is One-Box
 SSRS and SQL Server Relational Engine
 Great for developing and building something quick (and budget!)
▪ Good performance & scale if not mission critical
 But not so good when it comes to production deployments
 Test environment should be as close to production as possible
 Replicate security, configuration, hardware, software, network
 Clustering / High availability scenarios
 Emphasize the need for performance testing
 Identify bottlenecks (e.g. Report Catalog, large drop downs, large reports, etc.)
 Do Massive Data volume testing
 Using Visual Studio 2005 to Perform Load Testing on a SQL Server 2005 Reporting
Services Report Server
 Protect your underlying data sources!
 Reports can cause significant load on report data sources
 Planning for reporting load up front will save you time

29. Report Server
Clients
RS Server
Report Catalog
Reporting Data
Flat Files,
OLE DB,
ODBC
Clients
RSDB
SQL, AS,
DB2, Oracle,
Teradata, etc.
Clients

30. Report Server
SSRS
Clients
RS Server
Report Catalog
Reporting Data
Flat Files,
OLE DB,
ODBC
Clients
RSDB
SQL, AS,
DB2, Oracle,
Teradata, etc.
Clients

31. Report Server
SSRS Scale Out Deployment
Clients
RS Server 1
Report Catalog
Reporting Data
Flat Files,
OLE DB,
RSDB ODBC
NLB
Clients
RS Server 2
RSDB
SQL, AS,
DB2, Oracle,
Teradata, etc.
Clients RS Server N

32. Report Server
SSRS Scale Out Deployment
Clients
Custom Application Farm
RS Server RS Server 1
Report Catalog
Reporting Data
App
Flat Files,
OLE DB,
ODBC
NLB NLB
Clients
RS Server
App RS Server 2 RSDB
SQL, AS,
DB2, Oracle,
Teradata, etc.
Clients RS Server
App RS Server N

33. Content Switch
SSRS SSRS
RSDB RSDB
RSDB

34. Applications:
Cisco Global Site Selector (GSS) 1- SharePoint
DNS
2- SSRS
3- BlackBerry
4-Citrix Server
Alias Name = Green Connect to: GreenSQL1 5-VMware VC
Active IP: 100.10.56.30
100.85.3.10
SQL Server Cluster
SQLNetworkNameASQL1 SQLHostNameBSQL1
Active IP:100.10.56.30 Passive IP:100.85.3.10
Principal Server
Mirror Server
DR Site
Mirroring

35.  Scalability
 Remote Report Catalog
 SSRS 2008 can scale up significantly before needing to scale out
▪ Scale up SSRS 2008 to 16 cores; Scale up SSRS 2005 to 4 cores
 Scale-out SSRS 2008 or 2005 to increase throughput
▪ Virtualization works well on larger hardware
 Scaling Up Reporting Services 2008 vs. Reporting Services 2005: Lessons
Learned
 High Availability
 Scale-out Report Server
 Failover Cluster Report Catalog
 Disaster Recovery
 Scale-out Report Servers to include a DR site
▪ Stop/disable the Report Server services to prevent them doing work
 Mirror/Log Ship Report Catalog data to the DR site
▪ Will need to manually fail over to this database server
▪ Database Mirroring and Log Shipping Working Together

36.  Great for overall portal and collaboration experience
 Information Workers access reports like any Office document
▪ Reports, data sources, report models are stored in document libraries
▪ Shared security model
▪ Features Supported by Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode
 Supports Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007
 Report Metadata is stored in WSS Content DB
 Configuration can be a challenge
 Read the White Paper: SQL Server Reporting Services integration with SharePoint
Products and Technologies
 Read the documentation: Configuring Reporting Services
 Use Trusted Account mode
 Allows Windows users to access SharePoint
 DOES NOT require Kerberos delegation for the deployment
 No loss of functionality if using stored credentials in data sources

37. Report Server
ShaerePoint Farm
Clients
Report Catalog
Reporting Data
SSRS
Flat Files,
OLE DB,
NLB NLB ODBC
RS Server
WFE RS Server
Clients RSDB
SQL, AS,
DB2, Oracle,
Teradata, etc.
Clients
SharePoint
Content &
Configuration
RSDB
WSS DBs

38. Custom
Application
• Firewalls throughout environment to
protect data
• Point of entry: custom application
• Point of entry: enforce access rights
•Internet users can query read-only
data replicated and cleansed from
original data source
•Good reference: Planning for
Extranet or Internet Deployment

40.  Pre-Upgrade Check list
 Upgrade Advisor
 Backup/Restore encryption keys
 Backup configuration files
 Move databases
 Backup customizations (especially extensions)
 SSRS 2008 does not use IIS
 Upgrade automatically ports IIS settings
 All published reports continue to run after an upgrade
 RS Catalogs
 Upgrading SSRS usually means DB schema changes
▪ Before upgrading, plan for roll back
▪ Upgrading a Reporting Server Database
▪ In a scale-out all servers must be at same patch level
 Considerations for Upgrading Reporting Services

41.  Custom extensions
 Not all are supported
 Need to re-write custom rendering extensions using new Rendering
Object Model
 Security and Rendering extensions block upgrade
▪ Unconfigure the extension, upgrade, then reconfigure extension
▪ Blocking behavior prevents broken servers after upgrade and unexpected
development costs due to upgrade
 Inventory & test extensions before upgrade
 Save configuration settings for extensions
 Ensure reports using extensions are actually working
 Find problems with extension configuration quickly
 Move extensions & assemblies after upgrade
 Major Version upgrade creates a new installation folder
 Extensions and assemblies are not moved by upgrade

42. Tips for Saving You Time

43.  Tips & Tricks
 Blogs & Resources
 First steps after install
 Scripting
 Report Design
 Report Parameters
 Managing Subscriptions

44.  CodePlex – Samples!
 http://www.codeplex.com/
 Blogs
 http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlrsteamblog/
 http://blogs.msdn.com/lukaszp/
 www.sqlcat.com
 MSDN documentation
 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb545450.aspx
 Forums
 http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=82&
SiteID=1
 Connect feedback
 http://connect.microsoft.com/
 SSRS White Papers
 http://www.microsoft.com/sql/technologies/reporting/whitepapers.mspx

45.  Verify configuration
 Use SSRS Configuration Manager to view settings
 Provision users
 Explicitly grant security roles to users on folders
 Grant Content Manager and System Admin roles
▪ Required on Vista & Windows Server 2008
 Ensure browsers are configured correctly on local box
 Add RS & RM URLs to IE Trusted Sites on SSRS computer
▪ Required for Vista & Windows Server 2008
 Add NTLM auto send enabled in FireFox & Safari
 Verify SSRS is working
 View Report Server & Report Manager
 Create a shared data source
 Run a report
 Login as a low privilege user
 Execute your backup strategy
 Symmetric key back up is essential

46.  Rs.exe is the scripting utility for SSRS
 Executes VB.Net scripts
 No need to compile
 Exposes the SSRS Web Service endpoints
 Allows for automating repetitive tasks
 Eg. Moving reports from one server to another
 Samples
 http://www.codeplex.com/MSFTRSProdSamples

47.  Before starting to build reports:
 Ensure you have the targeted report export formats
identified
▪ The design of each report will change how ell it exports to
various render formats
 Plan your report logic
▪ Build Functions or Custom Assemblies to standardize report
logic
▪ Allow you to be operationally efficient
 Use parameters and filtering
▪ Few generic reports = easier maintenance
 Page breaks on hidden items are ignored

48.  Parameter values queries can cause significant load on report data
sources
 Design materialized views that reduce query load
 Optimize data sets used for parameter values
 Parameter values queries execute many more times than report queries
 Use hidden and internal parameters to validate user input
 Design a report with parameters A & B; B is hidden/internal
 Let parameter A be set by the user
 In the report have all expressions use parameter B
 Set the value of parameter B based on the value of parameter A
 Report Server manages parameter values
 After a report is deployed, the server stores a copy of parameters and
their values
 Changing parameter values in Report Designer and re-deploying DOES
NOT update server parameter values

49.  Use the subscription management reports
 http://blogs.msdn.com/lukaszp/archive/2007/08/01/monitoring-
subcription-status-new-reports.aspx
 Users will all pick different times to run their subscriptions
 Ensure your system can handle this load
 May want to deploy dedicated subscription processing servers
 Sometimes need custom scheduler
 GenerateEvent API can trigger a subscription
▪ Call the method from an SSIS package
▪ Build a process to monitor a file location
 Build a custom scheduling engine
 Delivery failures are in the trace logs

50.  In the words of our Customers:
 ‘SSRS is easy to deploy and out of the box’
 ‘SSRS 2008 makes deployment easier’
 ‘Web service provides interoperability’
 “If you want to do things not in the box, there are
a lot of ways to extend SSRS.”
 “Generally, there is a way to accomplish goals”

51. PASS Community Summit 2008
November 18 – 21, 2008 Seattle WA