DevOps and reporting leaders prefer SQL Server containers with SSRS for report development and test.
A best practice is to keep the SSRS report files (RDL) files in a source code repository like Git. Windocks delivers SSRS containers with the source database, reporting database and the latest RDL file from the Git repo. This makes development and testing simpler and more reliable.
Windocks orchestration delivers complete SSRS environments (RDL files, report databases, and source databases) with the click of a button or a command line or an API call. Simply provide a spec to Windocks with the SQL Server databases needed, and the location of the repo for the RDL files. Windocks orchestration delivers a SQL Server container with SSRS to each developer, tester and analyst. The orchestator automatically pulls the RDL files from the Git repo and uploads them to the SSRS service in that container. The developer, tester and analyst simply clicks or touches a button and the reports are ready for them to work with using the SSRS web application or web service.
You may choose to use one of the following data sources for the SSRS container:
In this case, you need clones of the source databases in the container and the report files (RDL) uploaded to the freshly created SSRS Report server database in the container.
Here, you need a clone of the ReportServer and ReportServerTemp databases from elsewhere, so that the delivered SSRS container already has all the reports in it pointing to the data source database (Azure SQL, RDS SQL engine database.
1. Install Windocks | Download the Windocks Community Edition or email support@windocks.com for a full featured evaluation edition. Provision a Windows Server VM (Server 2016, 2019, or 2022), install SQL Server (for SQL database delivery) and then install Windocks as described here. For Oracle database delivery, also install the Windocks service for Linux as described here |
2. Prepare the backup files |
If your data source is SQL Azure or RDS SQL instance, you need to backup ReportServerDb and ReportServerTempDB from there. If your data source is the SQL engine in the same container, you need the backups for the source SQL Server databases. The Report server databases will be created for you and you don't need those backups. The RDL files will be automatically uploaded into the report server database for you. Put the backup files or raw database files in a location accessible to the Windocks server and provide permissions to the machine running Windocks. |
3. Provide the spec and scripts to the Windocks orchestrator to build the SSRS image | Use this tutorial to create the dockerfile and the scripts needed |
4. Deliver SQL Server SSRS containers with the reports ready to go | The Windocks orchestrator co-ordinates different services to deliver SQL Server SSRS containers with the required databases and reports. Use a web application, command line or REST API to deliver databases on demand |