More on licensing/deployment - IIS/SQL on same box?

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More on licensing/deployment - IIS/SQL on same box?

sdoughty

Say Hey Kid

Points: 680
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November 16, 2004 at 4:26 pm

#165452

Hi all,
The Reporting Services licensing requires the machine hosting the Report Server to be licensed for SQL Server. This machine needs to run IIS for Report Manager.
We can either run ReportServer (and therefore IIS) on our SQL box and break the law that states "thou shalt not run anything except SQL Server on your SQL box", or we can license up our web box (ouch).
What are others doing? Are you running report server on SQL box?
And if we licence up our web box (dual processor), can we license a single processor?
Cheers,
Steve

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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sdoughty Say Hey Kid Points: 680 More actions · Answer 1

Bear with me while I work through this...

We can separate the Report Manager (IIS) part and the Report Server part, so Report Manager is on a web box, and Report Server is somewhere else. The question then is do you run the Report Server on the SQL Box? Is there a performance hit?

Thanks,

Steve

gbn SSCertifiable Points: 6429 More actions · Answer 2

Given that RS is pretty much entirely data driven, as in the reports, the schedules and god knows what else are all in the DB, then it would make sense to keep them together.

For performance issues, you could limit SQL to a subset of the CPUs or limit it's memory, but separating the metadata and the RS install could slow response because of the network latency (admittedly should be minimal) and could complicate security.

We plan on running a SQL instance with IIS and RS on the same box. SQL will only hold the 2 RS metadata dbs, with the actual users data to be reported on elsewhere. The box will be dual 3GHz+ (can't buy slower 🙂 and 3 or 4Gb RAM (SQL standard will only use 2).

We don't expect too great a load on our RS server, and we reckon it's easier to throw RAM and CPUs at the server (in our case) than have 2 servers...

vinny_1973 SSCommitted Points: 1832 More actions · Answer 3

You dont need ANOTHER license to run reporting services. The only license needed is for the SQL Server you are pointing at ... reporting services is esentially a freeby. It also doesn't actually matter which machine it's installed on ... we have it on our WebBoxes and point at our backend SQL Cluster!

gbn SSCertifiable Points: 6429 More actions · Answer 4

From the licensing FAQ:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/howtobuy/faq.asp

Reporting Services is part of the SQL Server 2000 license. There is not a separate license for Reporting Services. If you have a licensed copy of SQL Server 2000, you may run Reporting Services on the same server for no additional license fee. If you want to run Reporting Services on a server that is not licensed for SQL Server 2000, you will need to obtain a SQL Server 2000 license for that additional server.

So your RS box requires an extra SQL licebse if SQL is not installed on that box.

vinny_1973 SSCommitted Points: 1832 More actions · Answer 5

ooops ... been misinformed on THAT one!

Right ... everyone .... be VERY VERY quiet!!

hoo-t SSChampion Points: 12713 More actions · Answer 6

Ok, this is at least slightly bizarre. What are the chances that two guys named Steve post nearly identical questions within 40 minutes of eachother? If I can ask to add the success/horror stories part of my post to this one, then I'll ask the 3rd Steve (Jones, that is) to delete my thread. Sound ok to you, Steve (sdoughty, that is)?

Steve (hoo-t, that is)

sdoughty Say Hey Kid Points: 680 More actions · Answer 7

Thanks for your responses.

I must say that hoo-t's post was far more elegant and well-formed than my ramble....but I was first.

I have a feeling that there may be a few people (a lot?) in vinny_1973's position (well, they did say it was free), and it was only when I was asked to make sure about licensing that I read the full license clauses. (I used to be in an internal CAL based environment which makes things so simple)

My heart tells me to run RS on the web server, but my wallet says run it on an SQL box.

Any more thoughts? Horror stories?

Steve

philcart SSC-Forever Points: 47796 More actions · Answer 8

The best setup would be to have IIS and SQLRS on one box, but only have the RS databases hosted on that box. Having your main databases off on another server would reduce any risks associated with having IIS running alongside your production databases.

Really, there are so many components tied in with the SQL Server license now that MS needs to address the licensing structure and eliminate the need for the second license. Something like requiring a licensed SQL box to host the databases, but allowing the web services to be installed elsewhere. This is true with Notification services as well.

I don't think there would be too many business managers out there that would allow the purchase of an additional SQL license just to run what is marketed as a free add-on. We are in this situation and require an addional box because the current hardware doesn't have the capacity to process all our reports. I'm betting that there would be many companies in this very same situation.

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