Build a Scale Out SQL 2008 R2 Reporting Services Farm using Windows NLB Part 3

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Problem

Delivering reports is becoming more critical due to the increasing demand for business intelligence solutions. And while there are a lot of guides that walk us through building a highly available database engine, you'll rarely see one for SQL Server Reporting Services. How do I go about building a scale-out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services running on Windows Server 2008 R2?

Solution

To continue this series on Building a Scale-Out SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Farm using Windows Network Load Balancing, we will look at installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services on an existing NLB cluster. In Part 1, we have completed adding the Network Load Balancing feature on both of the servers that we will be using as part of the NLB cluster. In Part 2, we built the 2-node NLB cluster. This tip will walk you through installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services on the existing NLB cluster.

Installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services on the NLB Cluster

One thing to note when implementing a scale-out deployment is that you would need the Enterprise Edition (or Developer Edition as in my test environment) to do so. Bear this in mind in the planning phase as this will definitely affect your licensing. Since we are installing SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services R2 on the NLB cluster, we will have to do these steps on both of the nodes. As the .NET Framework 3.5.1 is already installed as part of the steps outlined in Part 1, we can immediately proceed with running the setup.exe file

1. On the SQL Server Installation Center. Click on the Installation link on the left-hand side and click the New installation or add features to an existing installation link. This will run the SQL Server 2008 Setup wizard

SQL Server 2008 R2 Installation Center

2. In the Setup Support Rules dialog box, validate that the checks return successful results and click OK.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup Support Rules

3. In the Product Key dialog box, enter the product key that came with your installation media and click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup Product Key

4. In the License Terms dialog box, click the I accept the license terms check box and click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup License Terms

5. In the second Setup Support Rules dialog box, click Install. Validate that the checks return successful results. If the checks returned a few warnings, make sure you fix them before proceeding with the installation. Click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup Support Rules Confirmation

6. In the Setup Role dialog box, select the SQL Server Feature Installation to install SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup Role SQL Server Feature Installation

7. In the Feature Selection dialog box, select the Reporting Services checkbox to install SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and click Next. You can install the client tools and other components as well but, as a best practice, I only install those that I need to minimize surface area as well as the components that I need to patch later on.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Feature Selection Reporting Services

8. In the Installation Rules dialog box, validate that the next round of checks return successful results and click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Installation Rules

9. In the Instance Configuration dialog box, select either the Default instance or Named instance, depending on your custom configuration and click Next. For this example, I will be using the default instance

SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup Instance Configuration

10. In the Disk Requirements dialog box, click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Disk Space Requirements

11. In the Server Configuration dialog box, enter the service account that you will use for the Reporting Services instance. Click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Account Configuration

12. In the Reporting Services Configuration dialog box, select the Install, but do not configure the report server option. This is what Microsoft calls the "files-only" mode installation for SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services. We will configure the report server after installation using the Reporting Services Configuration Manager. Click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup Reporting Services Configuration

13. In the Error Reporting dialog box, click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Error Reporting

14. In the Installation Configuration Rules dialog box, review all the validation checks, making sure that they all return successful results. Click Next.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Installation Configuration Rules

15. In the Ready to Install dialog box, review all the configuration settings and click Install to proceed with the installation.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Installation Summary

16. In the Complete dialog box, click Close to complete the installation.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Successful Installation
Before proceeding to the next part of the installation, make sure that you have successfully installed the SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services binaries on all of the nodes of the NLB cluster and that the SQL Server instance that will host the report server database has been configured for remote connections.

Configuring the first SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services instance

We will use the Reporting Services Configuration tool to connect the first report server to the shared database. We will have to do this for all of the reporting services instances that we have installed as part of the NLB cluster. In this example, I will start with the first SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services instance running on the server SSRS2008R2A

1. In the Reporting Services Configuration Connection dialog box, enter the Server Name and Report Server Instance name and click Connect.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Configuration Connection

2. Click the Web Service URL link. Verify the following values and click Apply.

  • Virtual Directory: ReportServer - The virtual directory name identifies which web application receives the request. Because an IP address and port can be shared by multiple applications, the virtual directory name specifies which application receives the request. This is the default value
  • IP Address: All Assigned (Recommended) - This option specifies that any of the IP addresses that are assigned to the computer can be used in a URL that points to a report server application. This value also considers friendly host names (such as computer names) that can be resolved by a DNS server to an IP address that is assigned to the server. Since this reporting services instance will be a part of the NLB cluster, we will use this value and allow the NLB cluster to manage the URL-to-IP address resolution for the incoming traffic
  • URLs: http://SSRS2008R2A:80/ReportServer - This will be the URL to access the reporting services instance on this server. As this server is a part of the NLB cluster, the NLB will be responsible to map the URL http://SSRS2008R2NLB:80/ReportServer to this URL
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Web Services URL Configuration

3. Click the Database link and click the Change Database button. This will open the Report Server Database Configuration Wizard

SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Report Server Database
  • In the Actions page, select the Create a new report server database option and click Next
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Create a new report server database
  • In the Database Server page, enter the SQL Server database server instance name in the Server Name field. In this example, my SQL Server database instance name is SQL2008R2DB. Click Next,
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Server Name
  • In the Database page, accept the default database name ReportServer and, under the Report Server Mode option, select either Native mode or SharePoint Integrated mode, depending on how you want to use your Reporting Services instance. In this example, I used Native Mode. Click Next.
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Report Server Mode Native or SharePoint Integrated
  • In the Credentials page, select the Authentication Type that you want to use to allow the report server instance to connect to the report server database. In this example, I will be using the service account that I used for the reporting services instance. Click Next.
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Credentials
  • In the Summary page, review all of the Reporting Server Database configuration settings. Click Next. This will create the report server database using the credentials that you have provided earlier.
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Configuration Summary
  • In the Progress and Finish page, verify that all the processes completed successfully. If you encounter issues in any of the steps, make sure you resolve them prior to continuing. The two most common issues in creating the report server database are credential permissions and remote connectivity. Click Finish to go back to the Database page of SQL Server Reporting Services Configuration Manager.
SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Installation Progress

4. Click the Report Manager URL link. Accept all the default values and click Apply.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Report Manager URL Virtual Directory

5. Verify that the reporting services instance is configured and working properly. You can do this by opening a web browser and accessing the URL defined in the Web Service URL page

SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Web Service URL

Once we have a working SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services installation working for the first node, we will repeat steps #1 to #4 to add the second node to the NLB cluster.

Next Steps


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About the author
MSSQLTips author Edwin Sarmiento Edwin M Sarmiento is a Microsoft SQL Server MVP and Microsoft Certified Master from Ottawa, Canada specializing in high availability, disaster recovery and system infrastructures.

This author pledges the content of this article is based on professional experience and not AI generated.

View all my tips



Comments For This Article




Tuesday, November 12, 2013 - 3:58:41 PM - Logicinside22 Back To Top (27469)

Very helpful information really appreciate for your hard work...

quick question is that Restart required for both Servers after installing SSRS on App server and DB on different server??


Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - 10:43:57 AM - Jeremy Kadlec Back To Top (14992)

RobA,

We will try to post part 4 of this tip next week.

Please check back.

Thank you,
Jeremy Kadlec


Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - 9:21:41 AM - bass_player Back To Top (14978)

RobA,

Watch out for parts 4 and 5 of this series.


Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - 8:06:48 AM - RobA Back To Top (14977)

THX for the screen shots and explanations.  That is thorough.

-- Rob

 















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