Datasheet

Chapter 1: Introducing Reporting Services
17
Intranet and Internet Report Access
One of the marvelous things about the SQL Server Reporting Services architecture is that it is based on
modern Internet technologies, namely, XML Web services and the .NET Framework. The report server,
running under Windows Server Internet Information Services, is essentially a complete web portal. At its
core, Reporting Services exposes all its features and capabilities as a web service. This means that there
are virtually no practical limits to how the features of reports and the report server may be expanded to
meet specific needs.
At the simplest level, this means that reports may be accessed by privileged users who are connected
through a corporate intranet or through the World Wide Web. Reports may be made available through
the out - of - the - box Report Manager web page interface or may be built into custom applications, as you
will see in subsequent chapters.
Seamless Application Integration
How and why you would build reporting into a custom business application is a big question. Although
there are some common (and rather simple) techniques, there isn ’ t just one way to incorporate reports
into a business environment. Whether you want your users to simply link to a report in a standard
browser - based report viewer or to have report content seamlessly melded into a custom application user
interface, there are a handful of methods to get there. Whatever the chosen technique, users need not
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