Reporting Services Components - Databases

Reporting Services creates and uses two SQL Server 2008 databases named Report Server and ReportServerTempDB by default.  The ReportServer database has tables to store reports, data sources, snapshots, subscriptions, etc.  It is the repository for the reporting application data.  The ReportServerTempDB database is used for temporary storage needs, as the default name suggests.  When you allow the SQL Server 2008 installer to configure Reporting Services, these two databases are created automatically for you.  If you want to create them manually, then you need to use the Reporting Services Configuration Manager.  In this tutorial we assume that the SQL Server installer is used to configure Reporting Services.

Reporting Services Components

SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 (SSRS) is a full-featured application that provides report design, development, testing, and deployment.  In this section we will introduce the main components of the product:

• Databases
• Windows Service
• Report Designer

SQL Server Reporting Services

      SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 (SSRS) is a feature included in the SQL Server 2008 product.  We use SSRS to design, develop, test, and deploy reports.  SSRS was originally slated to be released with SQL Server 2005 but it wound up being released a little bit ahead of SQL Server 2005.  SSRS leverages the Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) developer tool for all aspects of authoring and deploying reports.  BIDS is included with SQL Server 2008.

In this tutorial we will step through a number of topics that you need to understand to successfully build a report.  Our high level outline is as follows:

• Reporting Services Components
• Install Reporting Services
• Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) 
• Install Sample Database
• Create a Simple Report with the Wizard
• Create a Simple Report with the Report Designer
• Deploy Reports
• Configure Report Manager Security

To step through the tutorial topics, use the outline to the left, the arrow buttons next to the outline topic heading, or the arrow buttons at the bottom of each page