Reporting Services Overview

Reporting Services contains a collection of development tools, programming interfaces, run-time services, and management utilities that support the creation, management, and distribution of reports. It employs a multitier architecture; tiers are listed on the left side of the illustration.

The main components of Report Services are as follows:

Reporting Services Database and Data Sources. Pictured at the bottom left, SQL Server 2005 databases store Reporting Services configuration data, report definitions, and cached reports; this tier also includes one or more (Microsoft or non-Microsoft) data sources that supply data for reports.

Report Server(s) contains a report processing engine that interprets report definitions, executes report queries, renders reports, manages report scheduling and delivery, and executes report- and environment-management tasks initiated by administrators. A report server also hosts a Web service that external applications (such as the Report Manager and Custom Applications in the illustration) use to communicate with the report processing engine.