Reporting Services Roadmap 2014

SQL Server Reporting Services is a platform for the creation of data-driven reports for either manual retrieval or automatic distribution. Reporting Services is a mature and integral part of SQL Server, and despite limited updates in recent versions, it continues to play an important part in Microsoft’s business intelligence (BI) strategy. Performance enhancements in the SQL Server database engine continue to create new reporting opportunities, and enhancements to Power BI (Microsoft’s subscription-based hosted BI solution) should increase access to traditional on-premises reports and the underlying data, enabling further analysis and self-service reporting.

This report reviews the capabilities and roadmap of the “classic” SQL Server Reporting Services technology that has been a part of SQL Server since 2004. SQL Server Reporting Services is often abbreviated as SSRS; this report refers to it as Reporting Services.

Reporting Services Explained

Organizations and third parties use classic Reporting Services for managed reporting: designing, generating, and distributing organized views of data to decision makers who need them on an ongoing basis. The classic Reporting Services part of SQL Server has become a standard in many organizations for generating traditional business and operational reports derived from data in third-party and in-house systems. These types of reports are often routine, scheduled reports that summarize business activities and provide recipients with data in a predetermined format displaying prescribed analysis and metrics.