1. Reporting Services In An AlwaysOn World
Brandon Tucker
Señor DBA, OppenheimerFunds

2. Who Am I? Brandon Tucker BS Computer Science, Neumont University
MCSE: Data Platform (SQL Server 2012)
DBA, DB Dev, Consultant
Financial, health insurance, transportation, education industries
SQL 2005 – 2014
Presented at events in multiple states
Has a wicked case of wanderlust
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

3. Agenda SQL Server Reporting Services intro Common Setup
Scale-Out Deployment
AlwaysOn intro
Proposed Architecture
Considerations
Recap / Q&A
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

4. SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
Microsoft’s BI reporting tool
Components
Windows service
Databases
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB
SQL Server Agent jobs
Subscriptions
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

5. Windows Service Acts as a lightweight IIS (web) server
<instance root>\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin\ReportingServicesService.exe
Acts as a lightweight IIS (web) server
Entry point for report requests
Hosts the Report Server and Report Manager
Manages intra-SSRS security
Manages encryption/encryption keys
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

6. Databases ReportServer[$<instance>]
Report definitions
Data source information
Execution logs
Unaffected by service restarts
ReportServerTempDB[$<instance>]
Cached copies of reports / data
Data cleared on service start
An additional database if in SharePoint mode, but out of scope
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

7. SQL Server Agent Jobs Subscriptions Create with GUID names
Updated from SSRS service
Recreated (if needed) on SSRS service start
(Foreshadowing!)
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

8. Common Setup
Database Engine, Reporting Services, and databases all on the same host
Good for small environments, bad for mission critical
Single point of
failure
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

9. Scale-Out Deployment WTF?
Simple version: allows multiple SSRS services to use one set of SSRS databases
Provides some level of high availability (HA)
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

10. AlwaysOn
High availability (HA) / disaster recovery (DR) technology introduced in SQL Server 2012
Availability groups (AGs) allow for grouping of databases into “replicas”
1 or more replicas can exist for the group of databases
Can provide HA and/or DR for these groups of databases
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

11. Proposed Architecture
DNS aliases (CNAMEs)
For each application
Multiple SSRS hosts
Scale-Out Deployment
One set of SSRS databases
Availability group
Multiple replicas to provide HA/DR
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

12. Clients/SSRS Hosts - Normal
Application
Web
Report Manager
DNSApp
DNSWeb
DNSRM
Denver
Seattle
SSRS-A
SSRS-B
SSRS-Z

13. SSRS Hosts / Configuration
1 or more hosts in primary site
1 or more hosts in secondary/DR site
ALL hosts configured in a single Scale-Out Deployment
If the event of a disaster, start any services needed in the secondary site

14. Clients DNS aliases created for each application needing to use SSRS
Alias points to any online host
Distribute evenly to achieve poor-man’s load balancing
In the event of a single host failure, manually repoint each DNS alias to any other online host (can be secondary site)
In the event of a disaster, manually repoint each DNS alias to host(s) in secondary site

15. Clients/SSRS Hosts – Manual “HA”
Application
Web
Report Manager
DNSApp
DNSWeb
DNSRM
Denver
Seattle
SSRS-A
SSRS-B
SSRS-Z

16. Clients/SSRS Hosts – Disaster
Application
Web
Report Manager
DNSApp
DNSWeb
DNSRM
Denver
Seattle
SSRS-A
SSRS-B
SSRS-Z

17. SSRS Databases
Availability group set up for ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB
Database instances/replicas reside on hosts separate from the hosts running SSRS services
HA handled through replica in primary site
In the event of a disaster, SSRS databases will be manually failed over to the replica in the secondary site

18. Databases - Normal Scale-Out Deployment AG-SSRS Denver Seattle SQL-A
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB
SQL-B
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB
SQL-Z
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB

19. Databases - HA Scale-Out Deployment AG-SSRS Denver Seattle SQL-A SQL-B
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB
SQL-B
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB
SQL-Z
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB

20. Databases - Disaster Scale-Out Deployment Denver AG-SSRS Seattle SQL-A
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB
SQL-B
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB
SQL-Z
ReportServer
ReportServerTempDB

21. Normal Scale-Out Deployment AG-SSRS SQL-A Application DNSApp SSRS-A
RST
DNSApp
Application
SSRS-A
SQL-B RS
RST
DNSWeb
Web
SSRS-B
SQL-Z RS
RST
DNSRM
Report Manager
SSRS-Z

22. HA Scale-Out Deployment AG-SSRS SQL-A Application DNSApp SSRS-A SQL-B
RST RS
DNSApp
Application
SSRS-A
SQL-B
RST RS
DNSWeb
Web
SSRS-B
SQL-Z RS
RST
DNSRM
Report Manager
SSRS-Z

23. Disaster Scale-Out Deployment AG-SSRS SQL-A Application DNSApp SSRS-A
RST RS
DNSApp
Application
SSRS-A
SQL-B
RST RS
DNSWeb
Web
SSRS-B
SQL-Z
RST RS
DNSRM
Report Manager
SSRS-Z

24. Considerations Security Subscription jobs Subscription runs Logins
Intra- Report Server
Subscription jobs
Polling job that deletes jobs on secondary
Bounce any SSRS service on a database failover
Subscription runs
Failover during report execution
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

25. Recap SQL Server Reporting Services intro Common Setup
Scale-Out Deployment
AlwaysOn intro
Proposed Architecture
Considerations
Recap / Q&A
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

26. Q & A / More Info
Reporting Services with AlwaysOn Availability Groups -
Configuring Reporting Services for Scale-Out Deployment -
Report Server Database -
Feedback!
Sponsors
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9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

27. Thank you to all of our Sponsors!
Platinum Sponsors
Gold Sponsors
Marquee Sponsor
9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

28. Thank you to all of our Sponsors!
Silver Sponsors
Bronze Sponsors
9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014

29. Thank you to all of our Sponsors!
SWAG Sponsors
9/20/2014
SQLSaturday #331 – Denver 2014