Microsoft today announced it would release Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services by the end of 2003, with a public beta expected to be available this fall. Reporting Services is a server-based platform that extends Microsoft’s business intelligence platform by making more real-time information accessible to more personnel in a company.
Paul Flessner, today at TechEd stated that Reporting Services is “the ability to take an answer set that you’ve extracted from the database, whether it be the relational side or OLAP, and stage that up into a report that can be delivered in HTML or viewed through a browser or viewed through Excel…”
SQL Server Reporting Services provides customized reports to a wide rage of employees, and allows them to receive reports through a web browser, MS Office System application or embedded within line-of-business applications.
Reporting Services provides a business intelligence platform that allows developers to build custom applications adapted to their individual requirements. It can be embedded into an existing application, or a variety of customized reports can be designed. Data can be pulled from a central data warehouse and deployed to individuals.
Reporting Services supports multiple data sources including OLE DB and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC). In addition, multiple output formats such as Web browsers and Microsoft Office System applications are supported. Microsoft is working with industry partners to create an XML-based report definition language (RDL). An RDL would standardize the way the industry defines a report, thus allowing interoperability among vendors.
For more information on SQL Server Reporting Services see
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluation/bi/reportingservices.asp
