Reporting Services Report Models - Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - page 367

After running the Report Model Wizard, you looked at editing the Report Model. The Report Model is
an XML-based file known as the Semantic Model Definition Language (SMDL). This file is made up of
three major components: entities, attributes, and roles. Entities generally represent tables in the Data
Source View. Attributes generally represent columns, and roles represent relationships between entities.

When the model is completed, you can deploy it to the Report Server. Deployment consists of two
steps: build and deployment. Building the project checks to make sure the model is syntactically valid.
Deploying the project invokes the Reporting Services Web service and publishes the smdl file to the
server.

Once the Report Model is deployed, users can start building reports. After reading this chapter, you
should now have an understanding of:

❑ The types of data sources that can be used for Report Models. Analysis Services, and SQL

Server.

❑ How Data Source Views are created and some best practices around using named queries.

❑ How Report Models are generated and where you can find information about generation rules.

❑ How Report Models are deployed to the report server.

❑ How Report Model are created for Analysis Services databases.

In the next chapter, you look at the Report Builder client and see how it can be used against an existing
model.