Reporting Services Report Models - Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - page 342

Figure 8-1

Once you have opened a new Report Model project, there are three folders within the Solution Explorer:

❑

Data Sources contains connection information to one or more SQL Server databases.

❑

Data Source Views contains logical representations of SQL Server databases.

❑

Report Models contains models that translate SQL Server structure into user-friendly entities
and attributes.

The next sections walk you through each of these three major components: data sources, Data Source
Views, and Report Models.

Creating the Report Model Data Source
Data sources contain information for connecting to a SQL Server database. Reporting Services reports
created with Visual Studio can use any of the .NET managed data providers. However, Report Models
can only be created against SQL Server and Analysis Services. This is understandable considering each
different connection type (SQL, Oracle, and so on) requires its own semantic query processor to translate
Report Models into the underlying query syntax. In the 2005 release, Microsoft has no plans to support
other data sources.

To create a new data source, navigate to the Solution Explorer, right-click on the Data Sources folder, and
select Add New Data Source, as illustrated in Figure 8-2.