Datasheet

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 the Reporting Services exposes all of 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 simply means that reports may be accessed by privileged users who are con-
nected through a corporate Internet (network) 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 even realize that they are using Reporting Services to view their content. In fact, they may not even
realize that they are viewing a report. From the users’ perspective, their experience is simply a conve-
nient and smooth flow of information as they navigate from one simple interface to another, without
ever leaving your business solution.
Part V will help you explore opportunities for integrating Reporting Services reports into applications
and business solutions. Chapter 12 will show you different techniques for including reporting features
into Windows and web applications. You will learn how to program the Reporting Services Web service
to gain control over the report rendering process and to manage reports through custom applications.
Web Application Integration
It’s impossible to know for sure but by some estimates, as many as 60 to 80 percent of all desktop busi-
ness applications have been replaced by browser-based applications, most in the past five years. The
power of the web and Internet technologies has drastically changed the way we use our computers. For
this reason, web applications have come a long way in just the past few years. Once stodgy, static web
pages, many “web sites” have been replaced with interactive information portals and dynamic applica-
tion interfaces that provide feedback and tactile response to user interaction.
The page paradigm has turned once standard gray window dialogs into artistic-yet-efficient, fashionably
color-coordinated, data input and management screens. One of the reasons that Reporting Services inte-
grates so easily with modern web applications is that it natively supports HyperText Markup Language
(HTML), the standard markup language used to create web pages. Techniques may be used to incorpo-
rate reports into a web application in a variety of ways:
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