Report Server Administration - Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - page 463

Figure 11-3

The Report Server
The purpose of this chapter isn't to recite the requirements info readily available from Microsoft but to
give you an understanding of what's going on before you get there. In general, most managers of busi-
ness and enterprise environments are already pretty well set for hardware or are aware of holes in their
existing infrastructure. If in doubt about your particular needs, contact a Microsoft rep or regional office
to help sort things out. To install, the Reporting Services installation process needs to be pointed to a
licensed instance of SQL Server.

❑ Computer processor: PC with an Intel or compatible Pentium II 500 MHz or higher processor.

At the time of this writing, our development boxes run 1.8-GHz Pentiums. For production
boxes, dual processors will give you a big bang for the performance buck. Reporting Services
supports quad processor boxes for intensive applications. If you're running quad-proc boxes, be
sure to ask Microsoft about Reporting Services tweaks you may want to make in order to get the
most from your server. Running Reporting Services on a multiple-processor machine will mean
that SQL Server is also running on that box. Depending on your licensing agreement, additional
processors may also require additional SQL Server licenses.

❑ RAM: Forget what it says on the box; you'll want 512 MB minimum. Personally, I've got 1.5 gig

running on my development machines and 2 gigs on single-processor production boxes. It's
hard to go wrong by adding more RAM.