Monday 23 January 2012

Geting Started with SSRS - Part 1 - SQL Server Reporting Services Overview and Installing in Windows Server 2008

Geting Started with SSRS - Part 1 - SQL Server Reporting Services Overview and Installing in Windows Server 2008


Introduction
In this article, we would see what SQL Server Reporting Services are and a high-level overview of the architecture and the components involved in running reports on the SQL Server. This article is the first part of the series on SQL Server Reporting Services right from the architectural overview to running the customized report on different servers with deployment.
Overview
SQL Server Reporting Services provides a server based reporting platform, which allows customized reporting functionality for a variety of data that is transformed from different data sources. SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 provides a rich set of ready-to-use tools and services that help the developers and the designers to Create, Design, Deploy and Manage the Reports. It includes the basic report for the organization and provides customized reports with programming features to provide a rich user dashboard to extend and customize the functionality requirement.
SQL Server Reporting Services has a report server. It is a Windows Service with a set of features and runs separately in different application domains. SSRS has 2 components which are quite important for the architectural perspective. The first component is the Report Server, which acts as the heart of the report. Whenever a new report is created, it will be saved in the report server. It is the centralized location where all the reporting modules resides and provides an access to all the report. The second component is the Report Designer, which is also used to design the report and maintain the report design with the help of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 IDE or the latest IDE based on the requirement.
SQL Server Reporting Services also provides a useful feature of Scheduling and Delivery processor that pushes the reports to email inboxes or ftp locations based on the requirement. Now let us see the steps to install the SQL Server Reporting Services on to the development environment (We can make use of SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server Denali CTP3) and follow the step-by-step process.
Steps to Install SQL Server Reporting Services
Download Microsoft SQL Server Denali or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. In our series, we are going to use the latest version Denali reporting services. We can download the installer for SQL Server Denali CTP using the link Download SQL Server Denali CTP3
Download SQL Server Denali CTP3
Once the download is completed, there will be 4 files downloaded as shown in the screen below. Now double click on the SQLFULL_x64_ENU_Install application file to extract the required files for installation. It would take some time to extract all the files to the same location as shown in the screen below.
SQL Server Package Extractiont
Once the extraction is completed, refresh the folder. We will see a new folder created SQLFULL_x64_ENU as depicted in the screen below.
SQL Server Extracted Folder
Now navigate through the folder. There will be a list of files as shown in the screen below. Point at Setup file and right-click on the file and select Run as administrator.
This will start the installation process. We can see the status message as shown in the screen below.
Run SQL Server setup as Administrator
A new window will open leading to a step-by-step guide for installation process and some links providing help for our installation steps as shown in the screen below. We can now select the Hardware and Software Requirement to check the necessary things available for our installation. Else we can navigate to the link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143506(v=sql.110).aspx and check for the same.
SQL Server Installation Wizard
In the left hand side menu, navigate to Installation. The option New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation is listed as shown in the screen below. Click on the option to proceed further.
Selecting New SQL Server Installation
A set of Setup Support Rules runs is the background to check if the required process is available for installation. Once completed, a high-level result of how many rules failed or skipped is shown as depicted in the screen below.
Status message of Operations Completed
To check the details of the passed results we need to click on the Show details button. This will showcase a complete list of rules ran and their result as shown in the screen below.
Explained status Message of Operations Completed
Now click on OK button. As the next step, a new window with evaluation options for the licenses is presented. Select Evaluation license or Express license as per the requirement. Since in this article we are going to evaluate the product installation we will select Evaluation from the list and click on Next button as shown in the screen below.
Selecting the Edition of SQL Server
Clicking on Next button will navigate to the terms and conditions of the installation. Select the check box as shown in the screen below and click on Next button
Accepting the Licenses to install SQL Server
A list of updates available to be downloaded and installed will be listed. As mentioned in the screen, it first installs the Setup Update (30MB). Remaining is downloaded & installed later. Click on Next to proceed further after selecting the updates as shown in the screen below.
Selecting the updates to be installed
Next we can see the Setup Update being downloaded as well as the status of the steps as shown in the screen below. Once the download is completed, click on Install to proceed further.
Status of the updates getting installed
Next step is the new set of Setup Support Rules running and providing a result as depicted in the screen below. We can see two warnings. Since the server is domain controlled it shows the warning. Just ignore it and we can proceed further by clicking on Next button as shown in the screen below.
Status of the operations completed
To proceed further the type of installation needs to be selected. Select SQL Server Feature Installation and click on Next as shown in the screen below.
Selecting the SQL Server Role installation
This will present a list of Features that needs to be installed. An option of Select All is available at the bottom of the list to select the complete list. In addition, we can select shared feature directory option by selecting the folder as shown in the screen below. Click on Next button to proceed further.
Selecting the Report Services installation
Now we can see some set of Installation Rules running and get the result as shown in the screen below. Click on Next to proceed further.
Status of the operations completed
Further, as a next step we need to provide instance with a Name. Here we have provided with DENALICTP as the instance name, then select the install root folder and click on Next button as shown in the screen below.
Specifying the SQL Server Instance Name
A summary will be presented showing the Disk Space available in the server and the required space for the installation of Denali CTP3 as shown in the screen below. Click on Next to proceed further.
Status of the Disk Space required
A list of services and the Start-up type of each service (Manual or Automatic) will be shown based on the selection made as shown in the screen below. Click on Next to proceed further.
Selecting the Reporting Service Server Configuration
Now comes the Server configuration. We can use either Windows Authentication or the Mixed Authentication modes as per the requirement. Then provide a valid Password. At the bottom, we can see a button Add Current User, click on that button to add the current user to the list as shown in the screen below. Click on Next to proceed further.
Specifying the user credentials of the Server
Next is the Error Reporting option. If we need to report the error to Microsoft then we can initiate it by selecting the Check box as shown in the screen below. Click on Next to proceed further.
Selecting the Error Reporting
Now Configuration Rules will be triggered and provide the results as shown in the screen below. Click on Next to proceed further.
Status of the operations completed
A summary of the list of service and applications that are going to be installed is presented as shown in the screen below. Click on INSTALL to proceed further and start the installation.
Starting the SQL Server Installation
This will start the installation and the installer will do step-by-step process of installing all the necessary components as shown in the screen below.
Progress of SQL Server Installation
Once the installation is completed we can see the result and the status as shown in the screen below. Click on Close to complete the process.
SQL Server Installation Completed Status
Summary
So in this first part of the series of articles. We have seen what SQL Server Reporting Services are and how to install it on a development environment to start designing the report. In our next article, we will see how to design a report using the Design wizard.


Original Post By:==>Nov 11 2011 12:00AM by Karthikeyan Anbarasan   

No comments :