A few months ago I posted an article discussing how to upgrade integrated fashion Reporting Services from 2008R2 to 2012. That article pretty well assumed a small-scale SharePoint farm, with a single SharePoint server, a single SQL server, and with Reporting Services running on the SharePoint server. In this article, I'd similar to address upgrading and/or installing on a medium or large farm, but to do and then, I demand to first discuss the nuances involved in scaling out the Reporting Services service application of a SharePoint 2010 farm.

Every bit I discussed previously, and as the Service Application compages of Reporting Services 2012 makes plain, Reporting Services bits from the SQL server installation media must be installed on a server that has the SharePoint bits installed, and is joined to the farm. In the simple farm scenario mentioned to a higher place, that's fairly straightforward – it'south the SharePoint server (Non the SQL server!). However, if your SharePoint subcontract consists of multiple servers, you need to make up one's mind where you desire your Report processing to be done. With 2012, Reporting Services is a full fledged SharePoint application, which means that information technology is relatively straightforward to load balance this processing.

A recent project that I worked on had an architecture very like to the diagram establish on the MSDN commodity explaining how to scale out Reporting Services:

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The only difference in my case was that there were 4 servers in the front end cease role (1). Of class the servers in the application role served up more just Reporting Services, but the diagram is essentially accurate. In our instance, the SQL Server cluster was running SQL Server 2008 R2, just that was inconsequential considering only the Reporting Services instances on the ii Awarding Servers were being upgraded.

If y'all are are upgrading, there are a number of other steps in add-on required first. No matter what, the encryption fundamental should exist backed up outset. Information technology will exist needed later the upgrade unless you want to recreate all of your data connections. One time that is backed up, yous should of form support your two Reporting Services databases. Next, if you have a load balanced (Reporting Services) environment, I recommend removing from rotation all of the load balanced RS servers, leaving simply the server that will be used for the primary upgrade. To make things very uncomplicated, I also recommend completely uninstalling Reporting Services from all just the one server.

Once consummate, the chief server can be upgraded according to the instructions laid out in my previous article. Yet, you may find, every bit I have, that SSRS doesn't e'er want to be upgraded cleanly. The good news is that this is relatively like shooting fish in a barrel to recover from. The SSRS service application works like other service applications in that when information technology is being created, and you specify an existing database, that database will be upgraded automatically. Therefore, if you discover yourself with an uncooperative SSRS installation, elementary uninstall information technology, and install the 2012 components from scratch, making sure to use the name of your existing RS database when the service application is being created. Once consummate, restore your encryption key, and you lot should be skilful to get.

Whether or not yous are upgrading or installing fresh, in that location are a number of differences when installing to a multi server farm compared to a single server installation.

Firstly, when installing SSRS 2012, you will be presented with a screen where you may cull the SQL features to be installed.

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There are ii components to Reporting Services in SharePoint style, Reporting Services – SharePoint, and the Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Products. A lot of the guidance only says to select both options and continue. Yet, in a multi farm environment it is important to sympathize the difference between the two.

Feature #1 is the core of Reporting Services, what in the by would have been the instance, only is now the service application itself. Feature #two is the add together-in, which has been around since the kickoff integrated style SSRS. Information technology is used by SharePoint to connect to SSRS. In the past, that was a connection to the SSRS web services, just is now how the SharePoint front end servers connect to the service awarding. Therefore, in a multi server farm, feature i should be installed on every awarding server that will process SSRS reports, and feature #2 must be installed on every server participating in the front end role. Since application servers often perform a dual office, at to the lowest degree for administrators, I recommend installing both features on application servers.

I'm not going to walk through the steps required to create the service application and light up the features in this article, as at that place is quite a fleck of good guidance on that available. I besides wrote one up for installing on SharePoint 2013 which is pretty much identical to 2010 for SSRS.

Once the initial installation is complete, it should be repeated on every server that volition participate in the Application server role. Obviously the service awarding only needs to exist created one time. Once all of the bits are installed on all of the relevant servers, simply navigate to Services on Server under Organisation Settings in Central Admin, and start the "SQL Server Reporting Services" service on every awarding server. In one case that's washed, you lot'll have a load balanced, multi-server Reporting Services service.

It is worth calling out a common mistake encountered in the multi-server farm scenario. You lot may discover that subsequently your upgrade or installation has completed, attempts to admission a study from the forepart end servers result in a connection error, "The try to connect to the study server failed. Check your connectedness information and that the report server is a compatible version".

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It's the terminal bit of the error that's relevant. This problem arises when the add-in hasn't been installed to the front end servers in the farm. Now, you may remember that the Reporting Services Add-In is one of the prerequisites that the prerequisite installer installs on your SharePoint boxes. In the case of an upgrade, you may too remember that you never had to exercise this earlier to get SSRS working. So why is information technology that nosotros need to do this now? It's because the add together-in included with the prerequisite installer is for SSRS 2008 R2, and we've just added SSRS 2012. The add together ins are not frontward compatible, and therefore, it need to be on every front end end server in the farm.

So to recap, in order to scale out reporting services, Install the service on one application server, and get it working in the subcontract. Then, install the service on the remaining application servers, beginning the service on each server, and install the RS add-in for 2012 on all of the front end servers.