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SSRS Licencing

  • May 18, 2006 at 4:52 am

    #114656

    Hi All,

    Just a quck one... if I deploy SSRS on Server A (for instance in my DMZ) but have the catalogs sitting on Server B (in my secure network) then do I still need two SQL Server licences or just the one as I'm not going to need SQL Server installed on the box in the DMZ?

    Also I can't seem to get a clear answer on what architecture will render the best performance. I'm assuming it comes down to scale, i.e. on a small system where SSRS can sit on a single box then it would be better to have the catalogs sitting in a local instance of SQL Server to reduce network overheads where as on a large system that's going to require SSRS scaled out on a web farm, it would be better to have them on a seperate server as any network overhead would be far and away compensated for by the increased speed in serving a large number of requests. Does that sound right... or have I missed something??

    Many thanks,

    Rob.

  • May 18, 2006 at 9:00 am

    #638770

    > then do I still need two SQL Server licences or just the one as I'm not going to need SQL Server installed on the box in the DMZ?

    http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/default.mspx

    There's a whitepaper there that covers it all clearly.

    Any SQL Server service on a server counts as SQL Server.  A server with SQL Server database engine, SSRS, Analysis Service, and Notifcation Service will be licensed the same as a server with just Reporting Services, or the db engine, or AS, or NS.

    So if that box only hosts the SSRS web service, and not the databases, it still requires a full server license.

    As for scaling, you generally have the right idea, in that you scale out with need.  Network traffic isn't that much of an issue, though - if you've got so much traffic between data and report servers that there's a problem, then usually there's so much report and data activity that you'll have to scale out anyway.  Also, the web farm concept helps with uptime in critical apps, even if you don't need the extra horsepower.  If you're clustering your data servers, then move the report servers into the web farm.

    -Eddie

    Eddie Wuerch
    MCM: SQL

  • May 18, 2006 at 10:32 am

    #638799

    Many thanks for your comments Eddie... much appreciated.

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