Deployment Topologies for Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode
You can configure a report server to run within a deployment of a SharePoint product and use the collaboration and centralized document management features of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010 with Reporting Services.
When planning a deployment that includes SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services or later versions and SharePoint products, you can design a topology that ranges from a single server to multiple servers for high-scale deployments. The following list summarizes different deployment scenarios that you can use:
Stand-alone server deployments that place all SQL Server and all SharePoint components on a single computer.
Distributed server deployments that place a single instance of a server component on different computers. For example, you might have a Web application front-end on one computer and Reporting Services and the back-end databases on a second computer.
Scaleable deployment configurations that use multiple instances of the same server components to support a large number of users. For example, you might have a server farm that has Web front-ends on two computers, a third computer that hosts the application server, additional computers that run a report server scale-out, and two computers that host mirrored or clustered database servers.
This topic introduces the different deployment scenarios and provides illustrations to help you understand which components are required for each one. For more information about Reporting Services for SharePoint integration mode, see Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 2010 Integration.
Overview of Supported and Unsupported Configurations
Not all multi-instance or multi-server configurations are supported. When planning a deployment, review the following configurations to verify whether the design you want to implement can be achieved.
Topology |
Supportability |
|---|---|
Scale-out deployment with server farm. |
This is supported. Details about this configuration are described in this topic. |
Scale-out deployment with server farm, where instances are not the same version or edition. |
Not supported. All report server instances in a scale-out deployment must be the same version and edition (for example, SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise). All instances in a server farm must be the same SharePoint product (for example, either all SharePoint Foundation 2010 or all SharePoint Server 2010). |
Side-by-side installations of Reporting Services and SharePoint products and technologies on the same computer, but not configured for integration. |
This is supported. You can run a native mode report server side-by-side with a SharePoint product. Depending on how you configure URLs on the Web server, you might need to choose a non-default URLs for the Reporting Services server applications. For more information, see Deploying Reporting Services and Internet Information Services Side-by-Side. |
Multiple instances of Reporting Services on the same computer, where one instance runs in SharePoint integrated mode and the other instance runs in native mode. |
This is supported, but you must run all report server instances at the same level. For example, if you are using SQL Server 2008 R2, all report server instances must be SQL Server 2008 R2. For more information, see Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 2010 Integration. |
Scale-out deployment, where each report server instance in the scale-out is integrated with an independent instance of a SharePoint product. |
Not supported. If you configure SharePoint integrated mode for a scale-out deployment, the entire scale-out must be integrated with either a server farm or the same single instance of a SharePoint product. For example, the following scenario is unsupported: two independent installations of SharePoint Foundation 2010, each one integrated with a local report server instance, where both report server instances share the same report server database. You cannot integrate two or more report server instances that share the same report server database with different stand-alone server deployments of SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010. Doing so will eventually cause data corruption in the back-end report server database. |
Standalone Server Deployments
You can install all server components and application databases for both technologies on a single computer. This deployment configuration is useful if you are evaluating the software or developing custom applications that include Reporting Services in SharePoint integrated mode.
.gif "Single-computer deployment")
This deployment is the simplest to configure. Because all the components are installed on the same computer, it also uses the least amount of licenses. Specifically, Reporting Services and the Database Engine can be installed as a single licensed copy of SQL Server. In addition, Reporting Services can connect directly to the local instance of the SharePoint product. For more information about this deployment configuration, see How to: Install and Configure SharePoint Integration on a Stand-alone Server.
Distributed Server Deployments
A distributed server deployment uses multiple computers, where each computer hosts a single server component. You might use this deployment configuration if you want better performance for processing complex reports or large datasets for a small organization or workgroup.
This deployment configuration requires some advanced planning. You must decide which accounts to use for specific services and how the connections will be configured. You might also need to purchase additional copies of the software if you want to install server components on multiple computers.
For more information about which service accounts to use, see Plan for administrative and service accounts (Windows SharePoint Services) on MSDN, and How to: Configure a Service Account for Reporting Services. For instructions on how to configure a distributed server deployment, see How to: Install and Configure SharePoint Integration on Multiple Servers.
Two-Computer Deployment
The following illustration shows components for a two-computer deployment.
.gif "Two-computer deployment, example 2")
The first computer hosts an instance of a SharePoint product. The Reporting Services Add-in is installed on this computer.
The second computer hosts SQL Server Reporting Services and the Database Engine. Installing Reporting Services and the Database Engine on the same computer is useful if the benefits of running both components as a single licensed installation outweigh performance considerations. For more information about SQL Server licensing, see How to Buy Microsoft SQL Server on the Microsoft Web site.
Notice that when you run Reporting Services and the SharePoint product on different computers, the report server must have a minimal installation of the same SharePoint product. This means that if you installed Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 on the first computer, and you must install a Web front-end of SharePoint Server 2010 on the second computer. The minimal installation provides a Web front-end that allows you to join a report server instance to the instance of the SharePoint product.
The following illustration shows another example of a two-computer deployment.
.gif "Two-computer deployment")
The first computer hosts an instance of a SharePoint product, the Reporting Services Add-in, and the report server.
Three-Computer Deployment
The following illustration shows components for a three-computer deployment.
.gif "Multiple-computer deployment")
(1) The first computer hosts an instance of a SharePoint product.
(2) The second computer hosts SQL Server Reporting Services.
(3) The third computer hosts an instance of the Database Engine.
In the illustration, notice that the Database Engine does not require a local installation of a report server or an instance of a SharePoint product.
Scaleable Server Deployments
A scaleable server deployment combines a report server scale-out with a SharePoint farm. If you have a very large organization where potentially thousands of users require access to reports on a SharePoint site, you should consider pairing a scale-out report server deployment with a server farm.
For this scenario, the objective is to optimize the deployment for interactive reporting. If you do not have a large number of users simultaneously accessing reports or if the majority of report processing can be scheduled at intervals that you can control, a distributed server deployment might be a better choice because it is comparatively easier to deploy and maintain. For best practice recommendations on how to estimate capacity requirements, see Planning for Scalability and Performance with Reporting Services.
What is a report server scale-out deployment
A report server scale-out deployment consists of two or more report servers that share a single report server database. The following illustration shows a scale-out deployment.
.gif "Scale-out deployment for Reporting Services")
If you are configuring a scale-out deployment so that you can increase the capacity for interactive report processing, you must use a load balancing hardware or software solution to distribute processing across both servers. You must also register a virtual server URL in your domain to get a single point of entry to both servers. How you perform these tasks will depend on the load balancing solution you are using. For instructions on how to register a virtual server name, see your network administrator.
To avoid data loss and maximize server availability, you can run the report server database in a failover cluster. You must install the failover cluster before you create the report server database. To use the failover cluster, you select the cluster name as the database server when you create the report server database.
What is a SharePoint server farm
A SharePoint farm includes features that allow you to deploy its server components across multiple computers. The following diagram shows two front-end Web servers, an application server used for Excel Services and Central Administration, and two database servers to host the back-end databases.
.gif "Server farm deployment")
If you combine a server farm with a scale-out deployment, the resulting configuration might look like the following:
.gif "Server farm and scale-out deployment")
The following diagram shows how your deployment may increase with more servers.
.gif "Example deployment with many servers.")
The scale-out deployment must be load balanced and accessed through a virtual server URL that provides a single point of entry. Doing so allows you to specify a single URL to the report server instances when configuring server integration features in SharePoint Central Administration.
You must use a separate hardware or software load balancing solution. Reporting Services does not provide load balancing functionality or the ability to configure a virtual server URL.
If each report server instance in the scale-out deployment runs under a different service account, each service account must have permission to access the SharePoint configuration database. To ensure access, you must repeat the Grant database access command for each service account. For more information, see How to: Install and Configure SharePoint Integration on Multiple Servers.
See Also
Tasks
Concepts
Change History
Updated content |
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Updated several of the diagrams and added another example of a 2 server installation as well as the 1-N server diagram. |