Report Server WAN architecture

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Report Server WAN architecture

Chris Harris-622214

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Points: 386
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June 5, 2008 at 8:37 am

#191751

We have two locations, SiteA and SiteB. The connection between the locations is a VPN. Latency is about 20-40 ms.
All users are located in SiteA. Data is in SiteB.
I'm going to set up an SSRS server and my gut tells me to set it up in SiteA, close to the users.
Does this sound right? What other factors should I consider in making the right decision?
Thanks in advance!
-Chris

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alen teplitsky SSC-Dedicated Points: 30014 More actions · Answer 1

if your RS is in a different site from the data that's also going to be a performance problem. can you put the RS server in the same site as the users, replicate the data to it from your master server and run reports from the local replicated data?

Chris Harris-622214 Old Hand Points: 386 More actions · Answer 2

Hi Noob,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, the database has a lot of traffic and we don't want it to eat up the WAN bandwidth.

Also, we need access to the data in near real-time for customer support so copying data once a day is out of the question.

-Chris

alen teplitsky SSC-Dedicated Points: 30014 More actions · Answer 3

why not replicate the data every minute?

i found that running replication more often results in better performance than less often. my busiest publications run once a minute to keep the amount of data per job run to a minimum. you can also set it to use sp's, supposedly it results in less network traffic

Michael Earl-395764 SSC Guru Points: 53873 More actions · Answer 4

In most cases, you want to keep the RS server at the same site the majority of the data is at. The output of the report will typically be the least amount of information - it is just rendered HTML. If you have any reports that are complicated, use the matrix control, or produce charts, you would be streaming all of the underlying data to produce something aggregated. So, streaming just the aggregation across the WAN will typically be more efficient.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736068 More actions · Answer 5

The data has to move, one way or the other. The thing you want to do is minimize things. So, is it less if the data moves to the report server or if the report moves to the user?

I'd think there is less traffic on the data moving to the report server, since images, caching, etc. on the Report Server can help lower traffic. I'd put the SSRS server close to the users and let the WAN do the database traffic.

Michael Earl-395764 SSC Guru Points: 53873 More actions · Answer 6

That sounds logical, but unless you are looking at report history or you are storing copies of reports, the report server does not seem to cache much. It does not cache any data, and images get cached by your local browser where possible. So, I have never seen much of a performance benefit of having the report server closer.

Even exporting a report you are looking at (through Report Manager) runs the report and streams the data again.

Chris Harris-622214 Old Hand Points: 386 More actions · Answer 7

I really appreciate everyone's input.

Maybe some additional information will help. I didn't want to include everything initially for fear of boring frightening people away. 🙂

The data is currently being mirrored from the production server to another server; both of these servers are in SiteB away from the users. This allows me and a couple of other folks to query for near real-time data w/o impacting the production database.

There is a constant stream of data coming into the production server from several hundred clients. For the foreseeable future there will be less than 20 folks who are viewing reports and most will only view a couple of reports each day.

Therefore, based this information and on the advice you all have provided (unless I have misunderstood everything you have said), it seems the best approach is to locate the the report server close to the data in SiteB.

Does this sound reasonable?

Thank you,

Chris

Michael Earl-395764 SSC Guru Points: 53873 More actions · Answer 8

Also, for reports that are relatively static throughout the day, you may want to schedule them to execute and store copies on a server at the site the users are on.

Chris Harris-622214 Old Hand Points: 386 More actions · Answer 9

Michael Earl (6/5/2008)
Also, for reports that are relatively static throughout the day, you may want to schedule them to execute and store copies on a server at the site the users are on.

Good advice. There are some reports that we will run daily showing aggregate statistics. I will be sure to put these reports on a local server. Thanks!