Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 - Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - page 37

The .NET Framework
The Microsoft .NET Framework is a completely new direction for Microsoft and replaces the application
programming interfaces (APIs) and object technology of the past. It's far more than a marketing strategy or
a product. It gives application developers the objects and building blocks to create powerful applications
of all kinds. Design and debugging features are also available in it to help developers through the tedious
application development process. Utilities and compilers enable applications to be configured, compiled,
and deployed. A runtime environment manages execution, resource allocation, security, and interoper-
ability with other services, servers, and operating systems.
The main thing to understand about .NET is that it is a core component of Windows, and it supports appli-
cations at many levels. The runtime and the development support tools are free. Visual Studio 2005 is a
development tool that gives developers convenient access to these design and development capabilities.
Reporting Services is built on the .NET platform. The Report Server runs as a Windows service and is a
.NET-managed assembly. Rendering and management features are exposed as an ASP.NET Web service.
The Report Manager is an ASP.NET web forms application. Finally, the report metadata, subscriptions,
and configuration information is managed in a SQL Server 2005 database accessed through the SQL
Server ADO.NET data provider. As you can see, Reporting Services is purely a .NET solution.
Extending Reporting Services
On the advanced end of the opportunity scale, reports can be extended and enhanced in a variety of
ways. At the core of the Reporting Services architecture is a set of extendable programming interfaces
that enable the use of custom components written with .NET programming tools. Custom extensions are
discussed in Chapter 13.
Data Processing Extensions
The .NET Framework includes native support for connecting to standard data sources using the SQL
Server, OLE DB, ODBC, and Oracle .NET data providers. However, to report on nontraditional types of
data, developers can create custom data processing extensions to expose practically any type of data as a
data provider. For instance, a cache of in-memory data could be used as a data source rather than data
written to disk. Another example would be data stored in files using a proprietary format.
Delivery Extensions
Reporting Services supports subscription delivery via e-mail or file output with no additional program-
ming work. Additional delivery options can be added by creating a custom delivery extension. Using a
custom solution, reports could be sent to a message queue, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site, or practi-
cally any other destination.
Security Extensions
Out of the box, Reporting Services uses Windows integrated security through IIS. This allows you to secure
Report Server objects using standard Windows users and groups. There are times when this configuration
isn't the best or even a possible solution. One client we've worked with had their own Internet-based
solution. The solution used custom authentication and authorization code that was not compatible with