Datasheet

Part I: Getting Started
4
Not Your Father ’ s Reporting Tool
Since 2003, when users were first able to work with Reporting Services, the way you use this product has
changed substantially. Rather than just a simple tool used to create tabular reports, it has become a
foundation upon which you can construct complete report, scorecard, and dashboard solutions for
business users and consulting customers. This is not your father ’ s reporting tool. Today, it does
everything from simple, ad hoc data reporting to delivering enterprise - ready, integrated reporting into
business portals and custom applications. Now, in the third release for SQL Server 2008, the report
design environment is dramatically improved, with a fine - tuned product architecture and the addition of
several feature improvements. Reporting Services not only comes with a proven track record, but also is
ready to meet the needs of serious IT developers and business information workers who just need a
simple tool without a lot of complex, technical sophistication.
The Reporting Services Revolution
It was during my morning commute that my life and career took a different path
because of this product. In 2003, my daily trek to downtown Seattle was by passenger
ferry with a group of fellow co - commuters. I had been working on a side project that
had a substantial reporting element. It was a web application with a lot of database
work that I was developing on my laptop during every spare minute I could muster.
I was trying to use the version of Crystal Reports included with Microsoft Visual Studio,
and according to some of the documentation, it should have been possible to integrate
Crystal into an ASP.NET web site. Whether or not it was possible, it certainly wasn ’ t
easy. After weeks of frustration, a friend on the boat, who worked as a data warehouse
architect for the Walt Disney company, handed me a CD - R with a beta 1 copy of SQL
Server Reporting Services. By the next day, I had working reports deployed to my web
site. I was hooked.
In 2003 and 2004, we wrote the first edition of Professional SQL Server Reporting Services .
At that time, I knew that Reporting Services was going to be a big deal, and I also knew
that writing a book on something as substantial as this new product wasn ’ t going to be
a walk in the park. In the coming years, my employer, Hitachi Consulting, took on
many reporting projects. We had several people with deep business intelligence and
report design experience. Companies, large and small, migrated their business
reporting to Reporting Services. They recognized its elegant architecture, which made
it adaptable and capable of meeting a range of needs from out - of - the - box reporting
solutions to tightly integrated application design. It was an overnight sensation.
Reporting Services became a staple product for us, and many large companies wanted
to convert their reports from other, less scalable and more expensive products. In 2005
and 2006, we wrote the second edition of this book for SQL Server 2005 — this time,
with a few more years of substantial project experience and having learned many of
the best practices for report design and solution deployment.
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