Mapping Configuration Settings - Enterprise 2012 Instance

  • Hello All,

    I will be starting a new System Analyst position shortly and it has been stated that 50% of my responsibilities will be in managing a large scale deployment of SSRS and also handling design and development of new reports. Performance tuning will also be a key function of this position.

    I am mostly a novice to SSRS - have maybe created 20 reports my career - and new to the Administration aspect. I have a mostly a high level understanding of SSRS itself. I believe I will need to build on understanding of my companies configuration to get my head around this all.

    Can anybody help me with key areas that I should focus on? Something like:

    - Caching

    - Security

    - Shared Datasource & Datasets

    Just a view things off the top of my head.

    Thanks,

    Sean

    A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. ~ Einstein
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  • For large installs with common developers Shared Data Sources are a MUST in my book. Shared Datasets are tough to get a lot of re-use from beyond queries that populate parameter drop-down lists unless you have a small tight-knit dev team that does a lot of collaboration, or a dev team of 1.

    If you will be managing deployments I would suggest getting to know Report Projects in Visual Studio/SSDT and how to setup Solution Configurations so you can change a drop-down list in Visual Studio and deploy all reports in a Project to a different server environment, e.g. Dev, QA, Test, etc. Leveraging Solution Configurations is a valid deployment strategy if you're the one doing it as long as you're fine deploying from Visual Studio.

    You can also deploy RDL using PowerShell or C# by connecting to the Reporting Server's web services and publishing the RDL that way but that would be a more advanced type of batch deployment for large scale environments (what I designed and helped develop in my current shop).

    Getting to know the SSRS security model is key for admins as well, mainly the way inheritance for folders and how Shared Data Source permissions work on the server-side.

    The Report Scheduler is also super-handy to know, e.g. how to schedule a report to be emailed or written to a file share. That is a common need so it's good to know of it from day one (not difficult to pick up but there is some nuance), and then add some time to your initial estimates the first time you have to do it.

    There are no special teachers of virtue, because virtue is taught by the whole community.
    --Plato

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