Add an Additional Report Server to a Farm (SSRS Scale-out)

  • Article

Adding a second or more SharePoint mode report servers to your SharePoint farm can improve the performance and response time of the report server processing, if you have found it slowing as you added more users, reports, and other applications to the report server. It is also recommended to add a second report server to increase the availability of report servers when there are issues with hardware or you are conducting general maintenance on individual servers in your environment. Starting with the SQL Server 2012 release, the steps to scale-out a Reporting Services environment in SharePoint mode follows standard SharePoint farm deployment and leverages the SharePoint load balancing features.

Important

Scale-out of Reporting Services is not supported on all editions of SQL Server. For more information, see the Reporting Services section of Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2012.

Tip

Starting with SQL Server 2012 you do not use Reporting Services Configuration Manager to add servers and scale out report servers. SharePoint products manage the scale-out of reporting services as SharePoint servers with the Reporting Services service are added to the farm.

For information on how to scale-out native mode report servers, see Configuring Reporting Services for Scale-Out Deployment.

  • Load Balancing

  • Prerequisites

  • Steps

  • Additional Configuration

Load Balancing

The Load balancing of Reporting Services service applications will be managed automatically by SharePoint unless your environment has a custom or third-party load balancing solution. The default SharePoint load balancing behavior is that each Reporting Services Service Application will be balanced across all the application servers where you have started the Reporting Services service. To verify if the Reporting Services service is installed and started, click Manage services on server in SharePoint Central Administration.

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Prerequisites

  • You must be a local administrator to run SQL Server Setup.

  • The computer must be joined to a domain.

  • You need to know the name of the existing database server that is hosting the SharePoint configuration and content databases.

  • The database server must be configured to allow for remote database connections. If it is not, you will not be able to join the new server to the farm because the new server will not be able to make a connection to the SharePoint configuration databases.

  • The new server will need to have the same version of SharePoint installed that the current farm servers are running. For example if the farm already has SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed, you will need to also install SP1 on the new server before it can join the farm.

  • Review the following additional topics to understand system and version requirements:

    Guidance for Using SQL Server BI Features in a SharePoint 2010 Farm

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Steps

The steps in this topic assume that a SharePoint farm administrator is installing and configuring the server. The diagram shows a typical three tier environment and the numbered items in the diagram are described in the following list:

  • (1) Multiple web front-end (WFE) servers. The WFE servers require the Reporting Services add-in for SharePoint 2010.

  • (2) A single application server running Reporting Services and web sites, for example Central Administration. The following steps add a second application server to this tier.

  • (3) Two SQL Server database servers.

  • (4) Represents a software or hardware network load balancing solution (NLB)

Adding a Reporting Services application server

The following steps assume that an administrator is installing and configuring the server. The server will be setup as a new application server in the farm and not used as a web front-end (WFE).

Step

Description and Link

Run the SharePoint 2010 Products Preparation Tool

You must have the SharePoint 2010 installation media. The preparation tool is PrerequisiteInstaller.exe on the installation media.

Install a SharePoint 2010 product.

  1. Select the Server Farm installation type.

  2. Select Complete for the server type.

  3. When the installation is complete, do not run the SharePoint Products Configuration wizard if your existing SharePoint farm has SharePoint 2010 SP1 installed. You should install SharePoint SP1 before running the SharePoint products configuration wizard.

Install SharePoint Server 2010 SP1.

If your existing SharePoint farm has SharePoint 2010 SP1 installed download and install SharePoint 2010 SP1 from:https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460045.

For more information on SharePoint 2010 SP1, see Known issues when you install Office 2010 SP1 and SharePoint 2010 SP1:

Run the SharePoint Products Configuration wizard to add the server to the farm.

  1. In the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products program group, click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard.

  2. On the Connect to a Server Farm page select Connect to an existing Farm and click Next.

  3. On the Specify Configuration Database Settings page, type the name of the database server used for the existing farm and the name of the configuration database. Click Next.

    Important

    If you see an error message similar to the following and you have verified you have permissions, then verify what protocols are enabled for the SQL Server Network Configuration in Sql Server Configuration Manager.

    Failed to connect to the database server. Ensure the database exists , is a Sql Server, and that you have the appropriate permissions to access the server.

    Important

    If you see the page Server Farm Product and Patch Status, you will need to review the information on the page and update the server with the needed files before you can proceed with joining the server to the farm.

  4. On the Specify Farm Security Settings page type your farm passphrase and click Next. Click Next on the confirmation page to run the wizard.

  5. Click Next to run the Farm Configuration Wizard.

Verify the server was added to the SharePoint farm.

  1. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Manage servers in this farm in the System Settings group.

  2. Verify the new server is added and the status is correct.

  3. Note you do not see the service SQL Server Reporting Services Service running. The service will be installed in the next step.

  4. To remove this server from the WFE role, click Manage services on server and stop the service Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application.

Install and configure Reporting Services SharePoint mode.

Run SQL Server 2012 installation. For more information on the installation of Reporting Services SharePoint mode, see Install Reporting Services SharePoint Mode in a Single Server Farm

If the server will only be used as an application server and the server will not be used as a WFE, you do not need to select Reporting Services add-in for SharePoint products

  1. On the Setup Role page, select SQL Server Feature Installation

  2. On the Feature Selection page, select Reporting Services - SharePoint

  3. On the Reporting Services Configuration page verify the Install Only option is selected for Reporting Services SharePoint Mode.

Verify that Reporting Services is operational.

  1. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Manage servers in this farm in the System Settings group.

  2. Verify the service SQL Server Reporting Services Service.

For more information, see Verify a Reporting Services Installation

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Additional Configuration

You can optimize individual Reporting Services servers in a scaled out deployment to perform background processing only so they do not compete for resources with interactive report execution. Background processing includes schedules, subscriptions, and data alerts.

To change the behavior of individual report servers, set <IsWebServiceEnable> to false in the RSreportServer.config configuration file.

By default reports servers are configured with <IsWebServiceEnable> set to TRUE. When all servers are configured for TRUE, interactive and background will be load balanced across all nodes in the farm.

If you configure all report servers with <IsWebServiceEnable> set to False, you will see an error message similar to the following when you try to use Reporting Services features:

The Reporting Services Web Service is not enabled. Configure at least one instance of the Reporting Services SharePoint Service to have <IsWebServiceEnable> set to true. For more information, see Modify a Reporting Services Configuration File (RSreportserver.config)

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See Also

Other Resources

Add web or application servers to farms in SharePoint 2013

Configure services (SharePoint Server 2010)