SQL Server Reporiting Services: Migrating SSRS reports, data sources and subscriptions from one server to another

As part of our SQL Server infrastructure consolidation project, it was decided to consolidate multiple companies SQL Server 2005 / SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services instances to a new dedicated SQL Server 2012 Report Services instance. These existing SQL Server Reporitng Services instances hosts many business critical SSRS reports, data sources and subscriptions. In order to complete this task, I’ve to make sure that, all reports and other artifacts are migrated successfully from the existing SQL Server 2005/ SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services instances to the new SQL Server 2012 Report Services instance.

Well, we all know that this is not a simple task that can be performed manually, because it involves, manually saving each report file locally on these Report servers manually, and then moving and uploading the report files into the new location of SQL Server 2012 Report Server? This also means that I have to again create data sources and subscriptions for these reports.

Fortunately, after doing some research, I found two tools that can be used for this Reporting Services migration task. The first tool is Reporting Services Migration Tool from Microsoft, that can be used for migrating reports and other artifacts from SQL Server 2008 R2 and later versions report servers to the new SQL Server 2012 Report Server. This tool uses PowerShell for migration scripts. Here is the link to Download the SQL Server Reporting Migration Tool. For more information about how to use this tool, see Reporting Services Migration Tool.

Although, Reporting Services Migration Tool is a great tool for migrating SQL Server 2008 R2 or later releases Reporting Services instances. However, it is not a suitable for this consolidation situation because I also have few SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services instances. This is where this second tool that is a freeware tool called ReportSync comes handy. You can use this tool to migrate the reports, data sources and subscriptions from SQL Server 2005 or later releases Reporting Services instances to any SQL Server 2005 or later releases Reporting Services instance. The use of this tool is quite simple, as it only requires you to specify the ReportServer URL of your SSRS server, with the user credentials to log on to the server. The following is the snapshot of this tool: