Administering Core Business Intelligence Services - Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Administration - page 146

Administering SQL Server Reporting
Services
The BI strategy is centered on two key suites of products—'SQL Server' and 'Office'. SQL Server
is used as the data and reporting platform and Office provides popular easy-to-use front-end
tools for end users to view and manage the data and analysis. This includes products such as
Excel, Word, and SharePoint.
The key point is that SharePoint provides a central way to collaborate online. This is
where reports serve the purpose of sharing the data for trends about business processes.
SharePoint is a central collaboration tool enabling users to view and manage reports within
SharePoint. That is the key motivation behind Reporting Services integration with SharePoint.
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is one of the components in the Business Intelligence
platform, which provides the unified, server-based, extensible, and scalable platform to deliver
and present data. SSRS is capable of generating reports in various formats (HTML, XLS, PDF,
CSV, and more). SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces new features for data visualization, report
design, and end-user reporting. The new features are as follows:
F SharePoint Integration: SharePoint lists the SharePoint Foundation 2010,
SharePoint Server 2010, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and Office SharePoint
Server 2007.
F Data Sources and Visualization: It provides support for three new data source
types—SQL Azure, SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, and SharePoint list. New
Visualization types—maps, spark lines, and data bars with indicators.
F Report Layout and Processing: It helps the users to create a report that renders in
whatever way you want, such as source of ATOM data renderer feeds being exported
to Excel.
F Report Authoring tools: It creates queries in query designer to retrieve data from SQL
Azure or SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse; and preview reports in report builder
3.0 with an introduction of edit sessions for better reuse of cached datasets.
F Report Manager Enhancements: It helps us to update the color scheme, layout, and
is easier to navigate to manage report properties and server items with the new
drop-down menu to access various configuration options of each report.
F Newweb-service endpoint: It is named as ReportingServices2010, as it merges
the functionalities of both Reporting Services 2005 and Reporting Services 2008
with support management operations of report server in native mode and SharePoint
integrated mode.
F New Report definition language schema: It's a new element <ReportSections>
that defines map report items.