Black Belt Administration: Reporting Services Configuration Manager - Page 2

Settings Page: Web Service Identity

Similar in its function to the Windows Service Identity page, the Web Service Identity page affords us a point for the maintenance of the service account under which the Reporting Services Web Service runs. Like the previous service identity tab, the Web Service Identity page allows us to modify the initial installation settings. (Our options are restricted, within this context, if we have not installed Reporting Services on the Windows 2003 Server operating system or above. Should this be the case, refer to the Books Online and other documentation for information about the identities that will be assigned.)

Illustration 9 shows an example of the Web Service Identity page with settings.

Settings Page: Database Setup (Database Connection)

The Database Setup (Database Connection) page supports our specification of the report server database, together with the connection credentials used by the report server at runtime. We can also create a new MSSQL Server 2005 database from this page to provide the storage we need to support Reporting Services, if necessary, or, alternatively, we can select an existing MSSQL Server 2000 database for upgrade to MSSQL Server 2005 from this point. Provision has also been made for the deferred performance of some of the settings on this page via scripts.

An example of the Database Setup (Database Connection) page is depicted in Illustration 10.

Settings Page: SharePoint Integration

The SharePoint Integration page shown in Illustration 11 represents the default scenario, where the report server instance is detected to be running in native mode.

As the page notes, to integrate the report server with the SharePoint product or technology, we would return to the Database Setup (Database Connection) page and designate an existing (or create / upgrade a new) MSSQL Server report server database with which we would integrate our SharePoint Web application.

Settings Page: Encryption Keys

One of the most important uses for the Encryption Keys page is to provide the capability to backup and restore the public encryption key for Reporting Services. As the page notes, the encryption key for report server safeguards sensitive information stored in the report server database.

If we need to modify the account under which the Reporting Services Windows service runs, if the business requirement arises for the deployment of Reporting Services within a web farm scenario, or in other situations that might arise where we might need to extend our existing implementation via the addition of new Reporting Services installations that need to interface with a pre-existing report catalog, we will need to be able to access and restore the encryption key to enable initialization of the report server. The need to back up, and to safely store, the encryption key becomes readily apparent, not just for basic report server recovery in emergencies, but for any of the needs here discussed.

The Encryption Keys page is depicted in Illustration 12.

Settings Page: Initialization

Primarily administrative in nature, the Initialization page also allows us to view the initialization status of a report server. The Initialization page allows us to both initialize and remove report servers.

An example of the Initialization page is shown in Illustration 13.

Settings Page: E-mail Settings

Settings for report server e-mail delivery had to be managed, in Reporting Services 2000, via direct modification of the configuration files’ XML. These settings can now be more easily and centrally managed, as a page of the Reporting Services Configuration Manager. The E-mail Settings page allows us to specify Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) service settings, and thus the SMTP server / gateway in our own environments upon which we wish to rely for e-mail delivery.

An example of the E-mail Settings page is depicted in Illustration 14.

Settings Page: Execution Account

Last of the tabs in the left pane of the Reporting Services Configuration Manager, the Execution Account page supports the specification of the account under which tab Reporting Services carries out unattended operations. An account with relatively low security / privileges is typically adequate for this purpose. As noted on the page, some functionality is disabled until such an account is specified.

An example of the Execution Account page is shown in Illustration 15.

The Reporting Services Configuration Manager can be quite useful to us, whether performing the mandatory configuration of the report server for the first time after a files-only installation, or to verify or modify the configuration settings that were made during setup as a part of a default configuration installation. As we noted, also, we can use the Configuration Manager to update the report server database to the MSSQL Server 2005 format if we are upgrading from a previous version.

Conclusion

In this article, we introduced Reporting Services Configuration Manager, a tool that ships with Reporting Services 2005 and provides a single point of report server configuration. We noted that such a single point of configuration maintenance is a common attribute of enterprise reporting systems, in general. Among several specialized utilities that complement the Report Manager web interface for overall management of Reporting Services, the Reporting Services Configuration Manager provides a central point of Report Server configuration and ongoing management.

After introducing the Reporting Services Configuration Manager, we discussed how it enables us to manage related services, and to specify directories, identities, and database connections, among other details surrounding our installations of Reporting Services. We then undertook an examination of each of these capabilities in the walkthrough that followed, touching upon each of the configuration setting pages to get a detailed understanding of the settings it supports.

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