I am asking this question here because I asked this question in the
Reporting Services Newsgroup and did not get an answer. Does anyone know if
Reporting Services is intended to work in a client/Server or Local machine
environment? Based on what I have seen my guess is yes but that is a guess.
In some materal it talks about it running on a web server but my supposition
is that this does not necessarily mean that it would not make for a good
reporting tool on a local machine running SQL Server 2000. Is this correct?
I think it just tacks on to SQL Server 2000 doesn't it? I would like to be
able to use is Via VS.net.

I am asking because to me there seems to be a gaping hole where good reports
for VS.net are concerned. Crystal Reports has a robust engine but trying to
make it work in a .NET environment is troublesome. Active Reports is a good
product but has some limitations. Just wondering if SQL Reporting Services
is a good option. The material I've seen on it looks pretty good but again,
my interest is in local machine or client/server, not Web reports. Can it
be simplified and used for just these purposes?

Anyone?

Woody:

I wasn't aware there was a rs newsgroup. I'm having an airhead moment and
can't find it. what's the name of it?

THanks,


Bill
"Woody Splawn" <woody (AT) splawns (DOT) com> wrote

The newsgroup name is Microsoft.Public.SqlServer.Reportingsvcs

That said; do you (or does anyone else) know it SQL Server Reporting
Services is meant to be a reporting tool for local machines as well as web
servers. Anyone got any answers to the questions I posted below?

Thank You

Woody

"William Ryan eMVP" <dotnetguru (AT) comcast (DOT) nospam.net> wrote

For anyone interested.

I posted questions in the Reporting Services newsgroup about running
Reporting Services in a local machine environment and got the following
replies.

"The core of RS is a web service - obviously hosted on IIS. Therefore it is
by definition client/server - the client is a browser or custom-built app,
the server is the web server. Obviously you can run all of the components on
one machine if you wanted, but this wouldn't be very scalable. SQL Server is
usually best left alone on a server particularly in a BI environment where
you might expect it to be running big queries. It really depends how much
load you expect to put on it - a small scale reporting installation would
work reasonably well hosted on one box. The other thing to note is that
installing RS on an already licenced SQL box costs nothing - it is covered
by the SQL licence. However, installing RS on a web server will require an
extra SQL licence, even if no SQL is actually installed on that box.

The report writer does indeed integrate seamlessly with VS.NET and you can
create reports using VS relatively easily. You can also hook into the web
service API using VS.NET and start writing your own web pages/apps to
interface with it. RS ships with some samples of this. RS is a good option
if you don't mind doing a bit of development work yourself, and don't have
thousands to spend on Cognos et al. If you're an MSDN subscriber you might
as well download it and try it..."

Phil Austin


I will differ from the other response you got. RS is 3 tier, not client
server. Browser (or other client if you are using SOAP), web
server/reporting services/sql server db for caching, and the database being
reported off of. Sometimes the database used by RS is the same database you
have the data being reported off of but not always.

Putting all needed parts on the same PC does not make it client/server. What
you are wanting is a control that does not require the server to be there in
order for the reports to be render. I.e. control to put on the winform,
specify the report and have the report rendered. This does not exist today.
However, go to this link

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/mar04/03-26MicrosoftOLAPReportPR.asp
where they announce that such a control is being developed.

Taken from article:
exciting reporting feature scheduled for the next version of Reporting
Services, available in SQL Server 2005. Customers are very enthusiastic
about the new embeddable Visual Studio® controls that will allow
distribution of report processing capabilities within packaged or
custom-built applications, without the need for a separate report server.
This provides application developers, ISVs and end users with greater
flexibility and convenience. Extending the whole developer experience, the
new functionality also is targeted to ship with Visual Studio 2005 and works
both in Windows®-based and Web applications.
Taken with the other capabilities of VS 2005 and it is very difficult to
wait for the release.

Bruce L-C


"Woody Splawn" <woody (AT) splawns (DOT) com> wrote

Hi, Woody

It looks like you are getting some good responses to your post in
microsoft.public.sqlserver.reportingsvcs. Please check them out.

John Eikanger
Microsoft Developer Support

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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PR.asp