Mirgrating SSRS 2005 to SSRS 2016

  • Greetings and Salutations!

    I was just wondering if anyone has had the distinct pleasure of Migrating SSRS reports from 2005 to 2016.  I've done a little research and I know there is the following technique
    (http://www.forrards.com/HowToEasilyMigrateSSRSReportsBetweenTwoServers/) but that just seems to be available for 2008r2 and above and while digging a little further I noticed that mircoSuck themselves don't seem to acknowledge that is can be done either (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/tools/sample-reporting-services-rs-exe-script-to-copy-content-between-report-servers?view=sql-server-2017)

    So... I was wondering does anyone have any experience in doing this... I don't really want to do it manually as there are 1000's of them.. ugh!!

    Cheers!

    Remember
    Without Change something sleeps inside of us that seldom awakens, the sleeper must awaken!!

  • Have you thought about doing in-place upgrades to get the current server up to 2016?  If you wanted to transfer to another server you could then just restore over.  Is this an option?

  • Hi Tom,

    Sadly that is not an option as the server in question is Windows 2003 and its getting decommissioned...  That would of been a good plan... if it was an option.

    Cheers,

    Remember
    Without Change something sleeps inside of us that seldom awakens, the sleeper must awaken!!

  • It's still a viable option.  This will take a little work, but really not a whole lot (IMO).  Here is what I would do:

    - Have my server guy get me set up with a server according to my required specs.
    - Install SQL Server 2005.
    - Restore all of my databases (especially the report server databases - temp too)
    - Upgrade the SQL Server to 2016.  This will likely take a few steps because you probably can't go from 2005 right to 2016.

    At this point, I would have 2 options.  I could go-live with the new server or restore to another server.

    I personally don't like complex migrations.  The option I have laid out would allow me to throw it all away and start over if I needed to.

    Remember if you do restore the main report server database, you will need to backup/restore the encryption key.

    What do you think?

  • Hey Tom,

    Yeah that's not a bad idea... I'll pass the solution to my manager to see if he is happy with it.
    He is kind of old school... so I think he is looking for a nice new clean server without legacy apps(even though its going to be updated)
    Thanks heaps for the idea. 🙂

    Cheers!!

    Remember
    Without Change something sleeps inside of us that seldom awakens, the sleeper must awaken!!

  • I totally understand the desire to have a clean server.  He can still have that.  Actually, IMO, things would be cleaner without the risk of a migration.    

    - Have my server guy get me set up with a server according to my required specs.  {this would be a new server}
    - Install SQL Server 2005.
    - Restore all of my databases (especially the report server databases - temp too)
    - Upgrade the SQL Server to 2016. This will likely take a few steps because you probably can't go from 2005 right to 2016.

    At this point, I would have 2 options. I could go-live with the new server or restore the databases to another server.  {both of these (if there end up being 2} would be new severs}.

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