RServer in 3 tier environment

Can anybody shed some light on this for me?
I have to deploy Reporting Services in what I think is a fairly
typical 3-tier Internet environment.
I have the following
Firewall - 443 only
IIS Server (x2)
Firewall - 443 only
App Server (IIS)(x2)
Firewall - 1433 only
SQL Server
Question. How do I deply Reporting Services in this when the IIS
server can't talk directly to the SQL Server?
Is there some form of proxy I can use to pass through requests, via
the App Servers?
Any ideas appreciated
CliffRS is a webservice
so you can install it on your App server
and you have to create your own front end application for your IIS Server
which talk to RS
"CliffH" <Cliff_Harker@.hotmail.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
c13c8375.0409131514.6969f970@.posting.google.com...
> Can anybody shed some light on this for me?
> I have to deploy Reporting Services in what I think is a fairly
> typical 3-tier Internet environment.
> I have the following
> Firewall - 443 only
> IIS Server (x2)
> Firewall - 443 only
> App Server (IIS)(x2)
> Firewall - 1433 only
> SQL Server
> Question. How do I deply Reporting Services in this when the IIS
> server can't talk directly to the SQL Server?
> Is there some form of proxy I can use to pass through requests, via
> the App Servers?
> Any ideas appreciated
> Cliff|||Cliff
The best solution for this would be to install Reporting Services (IIS) on
your Application Server, this will be able to communicate with your SQL
Server and so deployment would be a simple task using the RS command line
util or ReportingServices() .NET class.
To access the application server ReportingServices from the first (UI?) IIS
server you'll need to create a proxy class to the Application Server
Reporting Services using WSDL. You will be able to reference the proxy class
using code in the UI layer.
Hope this helps
"CliffH" wrote:
> Can anybody shed some light on this for me?
> I have to deploy Reporting Services in what I think is a fairly
> typical 3-tier Internet environment.
> I have the following
> Firewall - 443 only
> IIS Server (x2)
> Firewall - 443 only
> App Server (IIS)(x2)
> Firewall - 1433 only
> SQL Server
> Question. How do I deply Reporting Services in this when the IIS
> server can't talk directly to the SQL Server?
> Is there some form of proxy I can use to pass through requests, via
> the App Servers?
> Any ideas appreciated
> Cliff
>|||Thanks for the replies, I'll get our guys to have a look at creating
this "proxy" on the UI IIS server.
Given this is a fairly typical deployment setup I'm surprised there
isn't something in the package itself to facilitate this
Cliff
"Buzz" <Buzz@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:<1BE284C9-C5CB-47E0-AAF3-B07021D3CB79@.microsoft.com>...
> Cliff
> The best solution for this would be to install Reporting Services (IIS) on
> your Application Server, this will be able to communicate with your SQL
> Server and so deployment would be a simple task using the RS command line
> util or ReportingServices() .NET class.
> To access the application server ReportingServices from the first (UI?) IIS
> server you'll need to create a proxy class to the Application Server
> Reporting Services using WSDL. You will be able to reference the proxy class
> using code in the UI layer.
> Hope this helps
>
> "CliffH" wrote:
> > Can anybody shed some light on this for me?
> >
> > I have to deploy Reporting Services in what I think is a fairly
> > typical 3-tier Internet environment.
> >
> > I have the following
> >
> > Firewall - 443 only
> > IIS Server (x2)
> > Firewall - 443 only
> > App Server (IIS)(x2)
> > Firewall - 1433 only
> > SQL Server
> >
> > Question. How do I deply Reporting Services in this when the IIS
> > server can't talk directly to the SQL Server?
> >
> > Is there some form of proxy I can use to pass through requests, via
> > the App Servers?
> >
> > Any ideas appreciated
> >
> > Cliff
> >

RS2005 access over internet?

Hi,

is it possible to make the RS2005 available over Internet?

Someone knows a guidance or tutorial in the Internet?

Thanks Stefan

What exactly do you want in RS2005 to be available over the Internet?

You can always access the reports by visiting:

http://serverName/ReportServer?/FolderName/ReportName&rs:Command=render

|||

See Tudor's blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/tudortr/archive/2005/11/03/488731.aspx

RS tiered architecture

I've implemented a solution with application, database and report server on seperate machines. The application is a web app and is Internet facing. What is the best method for executing reports on the RS server that are initiated from the web server? Using URL access requires a login or anonymous access neither of which are desired. Web services works but I loose access to the toolbar. Is there some other way to pull this off where I can let the public access reports and give them access to the toolbar?

Thanks.

Assuming SSRS 2005, the best way will be to use the ASP.NET ReportViewer control since it generates the report on the server and preserves the report interactive features. This article may help to get you started.|||

Thanks.

My understanding is that the Web ReportViewer the report is rendered on the browser not on the server and as such we loose the benefits of server cashing.Does this present a performance issue?

I'll give it a shot.

|||>>

My understanding is that the Web ReportViewer the report is rendered on the browser not on the server and as such we loose the benefits of server cashing. Does this present a performance issue?

<<

Your understanding is incorrect, so it is difficult to gauge the performance issue <s>.

The ReportViewer (web or win) has two modes. One is local, the other is server. But in neither mode would the ReportViewer be rendering in the browser. The difference is whether it is rendering in the RS server or in your web server tier, and also which tier is preparing the data.

In your case it looks like you are going to be using server mode, which means the reports come from the RS server tier and the data is prepared there as well, of course. The web tier hosts the control, requests report pages from the RS server, and sends the full page content for sending to the browser

In local mode the web tier hosts the control *and* the rendering code for the report page(s) without delegating to an RS server.

In local mode, if you are talking about report caching rather than web page, yes you are not going to have it because that is provided by the RS server. But if you are in server mode the RS server is going to decide to deliver a cached report (snapshot) based on its own settings, regardless of the client, as far as I know.

HTH,

>L<

PS To be strictly accurate, in all cases and all types of content a browser also "renders" a web page for display. But how a browser chooses to "render" what a reportcontrol sends is more like how it renders an image downloaded from a server. It doesn't "render" the JPG in the sense of creating it.

|||

My understanding is that the Web ReportViewer the report is rendered on the browser not on the server and as such we loose the benefits of server cashing. Does this present a performance issue?

We need to clarify what you mean by "render" and "server caching". The VS.NET 2005 ASP.NET report viewer is no much different than an ASP.NET page. It submits report requests to the Report Server on behalf of the user, gets the report presentation, and streams it to the client. This all happens on the server side. As with any web application, it is the browser who renders the HTML content to the user but it is a thin client. As far as the "server caching" I have no idea what benefits you are referring to.

RS Over Internet With SSL

Greetings all.
We're trying to run SQL Reporting Services over the internet with SSL. Our
reports contain sensitive data, so we want all Report Server traffic to go
over HTTPS (we do NOT want to allow any HTTP access).
We've got the Report Manager web application working, but with a couple of
quirks that we could use some help on.
Here is the current (functional but unacceptable) configuration...
This is a single-server deployment on Windows Server 2003 (and IIS) with SQL
Server 2000 (SP3a) and SQL Reporting Services (SP1).
IIS Anonymous access is turned off. Only Windows Authentication is used
(along with only Internet Explorer browsers).
The "Require secure channel (SSL)" checkboxes are NOT checked in the IIS
"Directory Security" settings for the Default Web Site along with the
"Reports" and "ReportServer" Virtual Directories (because if we do check it,
Report Manager won't work).
HTTP traffic is set to port 81 in IIS (for now - in order to reject all HTTP
traffic to the default port 80).
HTTPS traffic is set to the default port 443 in IIS.
The security certificate installed on this web server is configured for
"reports.mycompany.com" (of course with "mycompany" substituted for the
actual company name).
RSWebApplication.config:
<ReportServerUrl>http://localhost:81/ReportServer</ReportServerUrl>
<ReportServerExternalUrl>https://reports.mycompany.com/ReportServer</ReportS
erverExternalUrl>
RSReportServer.config:
<Add Key="SecureConnectionLevel" Value="2"/>
<UrlRoot>https://reports.mycompany.com/ReportServer</UrlRoot>
...
Report Manager DOES work over HTTPS with this configuration.
However, all of the Report Manager's upper navigation links ("Home," "My
Subscriptions," "Site Settings," "Help," and the breadcrumb-trail links) use
HTTP (over port 80, which we reject) instead of HTTPS, so none of these
links work.
...
Unfortunately, even though it works, this configuration is unacceptable
because a big requirement we have is that we want all Report Server traffic
to go over HTTPS; we do no want to allow HTTP traffic. The current
configuration still allows HTTP traffic over port 81 because it's the only
way we've been able to get things to work.
If we check the "Require secure channel (SSL)" checkbox in the IIS
"Directory Security" settings (which we want to do), Report Manager gives an
error saying "could not establish secure channel for SSL/TLS."
If we set the "SecureConnectionLevel" value to "3" then Report Manager gives
an error saying "could not establish secure channel for SSL/TLS."
We tried changing the "ReportServerUrl" node in the
"RSWebApplication.config" file to https://localhost/ReportServer (in order
to use nothing HTTPS paths in our configuration), but we continued to get
the "could not establish secure channel for SSL/TLS" error.
Does anyone have any ideas on how we can get all our traffic over HTTPS and
shut off all HTTP traffic?
Many Thanks!
JodyJody,
We do have RS working with SSL on one machine however on another machine we
can not get it to work. From your post I would recommend you change the
ReportServerURL node in your RSWebApplication.config file to
https://[FQDN]/ReportServer rather then https://localhost/ReportServer. For
example https://www.abc.com/ReportServer. Hope this helps.

RS on the Internet - security issues

Hi there,

We are looking at making RS over the web for a client.

Is is safe to put RS on the web? Is it possible to provide adequate security for complete peace of mind - ssl etc? Or does another security layer have to be placed over it?

Advice, thoughts, and some pointers would be greatly appreciated!!

Many thanks

Chris

It is relatively safe, to a point. Check out this article:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157198.aspx

for a summary of SSRS authentication options.

Integrated Windows authentication is not sent in plain text, and it is controlled by IIS, not RS. But you can only use integrated (NTLM) authentication in IE.

sluggy

|||

Reporting services supports SSL.

For authentication, you can either:

1. use forms based authentication - take a look at the sample that comes with RS 2005 or

2. use the built-in Windows authentication if you want to give your users access to your domain.

In general RS 2005 is safer/easier to deploy in internet facing scenarios than RS 2000. See the following article for some more information.

http://blogs.msdn.com/tudortr/archive/2005/11/03/488731.aspx

The safest option is to only expose report manager outside of the firewall.

There will be more information on this topic in an upcoming MSDN doc refresh.

Thanks

Tudor Trufinescu

|||

Thanks Tudor,

To put into context, we are looking at putting a server into a datacentre, putting SQL and RS onto it, and RS making available to clients.

If we use windows authentication (with SSL?), would you consider this to be a secure environment? Considering the context, would it be a problem if clients have access to our domain? Could we set up their user accounts so that they would only be able to access our site via a browser into RS?

Regards

Chris

RS on the Internet

Im tring to gte my report server to work on the Internet.
It works fine locally but when I add the ReportServerExternalURL to the
config file as documented it fails saying ;
The configuration file contains an element that is not valid. The
ReportServerExternalURL element is not a configuration file element.
I am using Win2003 and RsSp1. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?
NickIt must be something like
<Configuration>
<UI>
<ReportServerUrl>http://www.MyRSServer.com/ReportServer</ReportServerUrl>
</UI>
in RSWebApplication.config. I think ReportServerExternalURL is the wrong
property tag for this.
Hope this helps.
Regards
"Nick Jacobs" <news@.winman.co.uk> wrote in message
news:#A2Ff9tAFHA.1188@.tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Im tring to gte my report server to work on the Internet.
> It works fine locally but when I add the ReportServerExternalURL to the
> config file as documented it fails saying ;
> The configuration file contains an element that is not valid. The
> ReportServerExternalURL element is not a configuration file element.
> I am using Win2003 and RsSp1. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?
> Nick
>
>|||You may be modifiying the wrong Config file. This change should be
made to the "RSWebApplication.config" file which is usually located at
the following path:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting
Services\ReportManager
The new node will go within the UI element, alongside the
ReportServerUrl element. The value should be the fully-qualified
domain name for the external address.
<Configuration>
<UI>
<ReportServerUrl>http://localhost/ReportServer</ReportServerUrl>
<ReportServerExternalURL>reports.adventure-works.com</ReportServerExternalURL>
</UI>
...
NOTE: Be careful because, all elements are case-sensitive and this one
has "URL" capitalized instead of Pascal cased. Improper case can also
cause this to fail.
For more details, see MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/rsadmin/htm/drp_deploying_v1_0h9e.asp
I hope this helps,
Lance Hunt
http://weblogs.asp.net/lhunt/|||I have
<Configuration>
<UI>
<ReportServerUrl>http://COMSRV/ReportServer</ReportServerUrl>
<ReportServerExternalURL>http://remote.mydomain.co.uk/ReportServer</ReportServerExternalURL>
</UI>
In the RSWebApplication.config
Isn't this supposed to work?
Nick
"Lance" <lancehunt@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1106665173.525554.327200@.z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> You may be modifiying the wrong Config file. This change should be
> made to the "RSWebApplication.config" file which is usually located at
> the following path:
> C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting
> Services\ReportManager
> The new node will go within the UI element, alongside the
> ReportServerUrl element. The value should be the fully-qualified
> domain name for the external address.
> <Configuration>
> <UI>
> <ReportServerUrl>http://localhost/ReportServer</ReportServerUrl>
> <ReportServerExternalURL>reports.adventure-works.com</ReportServerExternalURL>
> </UI>
> ...
>
> NOTE: Be careful because, all elements are case-sensitive and this one
> has "URL" capitalized instead of Pascal cased. Improper case can also
> cause this to fail.
> For more details, see MSDN:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/rsadmin/htm/drp_deploying_v1_0h9e.asp
> I hope this helps,
> Lance Hunt
> http://weblogs.asp.net/lhunt/
>|||You were half right Lance. It is the case of the element but it's the MSDN
documentation that is wrong.
The element should read ReportServerExternalUrl not ReportServerExternalURL.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
Nick
"Lance" <lancehunt@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1106665173.525554.327200@.z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> You may be modifiying the wrong Config file. This change should be
> made to the "RSWebApplication.config" file which is usually located at
> the following path:
> C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting
> Services\ReportManager
> The new node will go within the UI element, alongside the
> ReportServerUrl element. The value should be the fully-qualified
> domain name for the external address.
> <Configuration>
> <UI>
> <ReportServerUrl>http://localhost/ReportServer</ReportServerUrl>
> <ReportServerExternalURL>reports.adventure-works.com</ReportServerExternalURL>
> </UI>
> ...
>
> NOTE: Be careful because, all elements are case-sensitive and this one
> has "URL" capitalized instead of Pascal cased. Improper case can also
> cause this to fail.
> For more details, see MSDN:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/rsadmin/htm/drp_deploying_v1_0h9e.asp
> I hope this helps,
> Lance Hunt
> http://weblogs.asp.net/lhunt/
>|||Sorry about that. I usually test my suggestions locally before
posting, but I wasnt at my Dev PC when I posted that info. Now that
you mention it, I seem to recall this documentation mistake.
Regardless, I'm glad you worked it out.
Lance
http://weblogs.asp.net/lhunt/

RS on SSL losing querystring in URL

Hi,
This is a live problem that Iam facing,
There is this internet application (in SSL) which I deployed at my
Client which access reports by calling something like
https://in4suite.symphonysv.com/ReportServer?/reports/ChangeInDealSizeReport&rs:Command=Render&userid=3®ionid=0
Here is the THE PROBLEM.
After I call the report (by clicking a link in the application) in the
INTERNET application, it opens well taking the default values. When I
change one value in any of the parameters, the parameter toolbar hangs
with the white blank screen. There is no postback happening or it is
hanging at the post back. So The customer cant do anything except see
the report for the default values.
I did this research. I called a report, When I right-clicked on the
report page to see the Properties window, I noticed that the parameters
in the URL which were supposed to be passed are not there. So the
Address:URL looked like this
https://in4suite.symphonysv.com/ReportServer?%2freports%
It does not carry any info on the URL except the report folder. So I
believe this is why the report is hanging. So this means the
querystring is being lost.
What is the workaround or trick to let the URL in full be available
after calling the report the first time. This will help the post back
occur Iam sure.
Help Please.
Anand Sagar
In4VelocityNo WAIT !!
I was wrong. The complete URL qureystring is still there. It does not
lose the querystring, I was not scrolling down completely.
The reason for the problem is something else.|||Here is the actual problem.
Iam passing a parameter '&userid=3' in the URL when I first call the
report. The report shows up fine. Then when I change any other
parameter value in the report parameters UI, a post back occurs and the
report hangs. I noticed that when I drag down the separator between the
parameter area and the report area, I see another report page behind
which says
"This report requires a default or user-defined value for the report
parameter 'userid'. To run or subscribe to this report, you must
provide a parameter value. (rsReportParameterValueNotSet)"
So this means when a postback occurs, the default parameter in the URL
is lost. Why does this happen. Any ideas ? The report server is in SSL.
Is this an issue ?
Thanks,
Anand Sagar

RS Authoring over the Internet

It appears that to enable true authoring over the internet, you need to
create local users on the RS/IIS box, and create identical SQL logins so
remote users can build their DSN's for their reports.
Other ideas?
JeffFor one, use AD groups in SQL.|||Nope, doesn't work. Just tried it again to verify. I created a local user on
the box, added him to a local group, created a login for the group, and
added the login to the database role.
When trying to connect over the internet using ISQLW for example, I get
"login failed for user 'erstesting'". Native SQL logins work just fine.
Jeff
"Jerry Nixon" <jerrynixon@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:36f558cf.0410131248.5c092472@.posting.google.com...
> For one, use AD groups in SQL.

RS 2005 with other browsers?

Hi all
Can anyone report on how well the early releases of RS 2005 works for
browers other than Internet Explorer, especially FireFox? This was the
main thing that prevented us using RS behind our customer portal
website.
I'm not so concerned about the toolbar etc but more the html for
relatively simple tabular html reports.
Thanks
RossI haven't been using it very long - a couple of months maybe, but so
far it looks good. Reports seem to render correctly, with some minor
formatting issues that can be worked around. Export to PDF works
perfectly.
I've tested with the latest version of IE (fully SP'ed) and FireFox
1.0.7.
Toolbar paging works too in FireFox, although the "Find" box is absent.
-Chris