SQL Reporting Services Launches

Reporting Services is now available to SQL Server 2000 customers at no additional charge. Originally planned for the next release of SQL Server, code-named Yukon, the Reporting Services component provides native SQL Server support for creation and management of human-readable reports. It will particularly interest organizations distributing reports to large numbers of users on an ongoing basis and Windows software vendors (including Microsoft) who want to deliver reports that can easily be read in a Web browser. However, the release will affect Microsoft partners who already provide managed reporting on SQL Server and don’t differentiate their products with industry- or application-specific expertise.

Customers and partners can use Reporting Services for a wide range of reporting needs in their database applications and could eliminate the need for custom or third-party reporting engines in many cases. Within Microsoft, several groups plan to use the add-on to provide reporting capabilities in their products—for example, Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2004 will use it to generate status reports. However, Reporting Services is not an out-of-the-box solution or a tool for end-user report creation; developers must use Visual Studio .NET 2003 to create reports and determine how those reports will be published or distributed.