Before we delve into the installation and configuration of SSRS, you have to know what native mode is and how you can administer a Reporting Services installation.
In native mode, a report server is a stand-alone application server that provides all viewing, management, processing, and delivery of reports. A Reporting Services report server configured for native mode runs as an application server that provides all processing and management capability exclusively through Reporting Services components. You can use Reporting Services web portal to manage these reports. (The alternative to native mode, called SharePoint mode, is no longer available after SQL Server 2016.)
To fully administer a Reporting Services installation, you must have the following permissions:
- Membership in the local Administrator group on the report server computer
- Database administrator permissions for the SQL Server instance that hosts the database, which you use to create reports
SQL Server Reporting Services is no longer included in the SQL Server installation. Therefore, you need to download the setup file first. There are a few ways to download the corresponding file:
- As mentioned in Chapter 2, you can do it during the installation of SQL Server 2019 on the Feature Selection page. To the right of Looking for Reporting Services?, click the Download It from the Web link (see Figure 2-5 in Chapter 2).
- You can download it directly from the following page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55252
After the download process is finished, launch the setup. Click Install Reporting Services. Enter the product key if you have one, or choose one of the free editions. For this installation,
I selected the free edition (valid for 180 days). After this step, the installation process is straightforward and thus I won’t discuss it further.
Once installation is complete, you can either finish the installation process or start to configure the report server. To perform configuration, click Configure Report Server. This opens the Report Server Connection dialog box with an auto-created instance name of SSRS. Click Connect.
Once connected, click Service Account in the left navigation pane to open the Service Account page (see Figure 25-2). Enter in the Account (Domain\user) field an existing service account you want to use for SSRS. As shown in Figure 25-2, I entered the name of my account, LAPTOP-TVUM0CNL\Petkovic, which I created previously. Click Apply and make sure the task is completed successfully.
Click Web Service URL in the left pane to open the corresponding page. Type in the Virtual Directory field a name of your choice. (The default name is ReportServer.) Click Apply and make sure the task is completed.
Click Database to open the Database page, and click Change Database to launch the Report Server Database Configuration Wizard, which takes you through the following steps to create a new report server database:
- On the Action page of the wizard, click the Create a New Report Server Database radio button and click Next.
- On the Database Server page, in the Server Name field (see Figure 25-3), specify a SQL Server name along with the instance name and click Test Connection to make sure that the connection to the specified database succeeds. Click Next.
- On the Database page, in the Database Name field, provide a database name of your choice. (I kept the default name, ReportServer.) Click Next.
- On the Credentials page, you should see the service account that you used previously. Click Next.
- On the Summary page, verify that all the information you provided is correct and, if so, click Next. (If not, click Previous to return to the page where you need to make corrections.)
- The Progress and Finish page shows a progress bar as the wizard configures the database, and then shows the configuration of Report Server Database Configuration with all parameters as Success (see Figure 25-4). Click Finish.
Finally, back in the main SSRS Configuration Manager window, click web portal URL on the left to open the corresponding page and specify in the Virtual Directory field the name of the virtual directory to use as the website URL for reports. (I kept the default name, Reports.) Click Apply, and verify that the task completed successfully.
Now that you are familiar with the components of SQL Server Reporting Services as well as its installation and configuration, you will learn how to create, deploy, and deliver reports.
Source: Petkovic Dusan (2020), Microsoft SQL Server 2019: A Beginner’s Guide, Seventh Edition-McGraw-Hill Education.