SSRS Report runs slower in Preview Mode/Report Viewer - reporting-services

I am using Visual Studio 2019 and using Microsoft Reporting Services Projects Extension v2.6.7. The problem i am facing is i have a report that process about 60k records, the report is complex and has Groups, repeat headers, dataset filters and also VB Code.
The stored procedure used for this report runs in less than 10 seconds and when the report is deployed to Report Server the report completes rendering in less than 2 Mins. But when I run the same report using Visual Studio in preview or Run Mode (Report Viewer) the report runs for a whooping 17-20 mins. I have used SQL Profiler and see the Stored procedure execution time is almost same as the report execution time. The stored procedure is designed to handle parameter sniffing issue and I dont see any issue with the procedure.
From the report side, i have tried Keeptogether=false, Interactive size etc that could impact performance. They look fine.
I also tried to add WorkingSetMaximum to increase memory but still no luck. The client i am working with requires to have the RDLC File integrated in their app and will not want to deploy on Report Server for their own reason.
How can i make my report run faster in Visual Studio Preview Mode/Report Viewer (Run Mode) so that I can match the performance of the report with the performance i Get in Report Server.
Also if anyone could tell if there is a difference in how the report rendering works on Report Server vs Preview Mode.
Edit 1 - Report Server and the database is configured in my laptop and it is not having any different configuration.
Edit 2 - Another observation i have gathered by running SQL Profiler is that during Preview mode the connection is kept open and the data retrieval time justifies report run time. Both are same. But when i run the report through report manager from the same machine, procedure completes in seconds and even the report renders faster. And As i have mentioned above, i have taken care of parameter sniffing. I am now trying to understand if there is a difference in the way SSRS Engine treats report rending and data retrieval for Preview and when report is deployed to reporting service.

I came across this Q&A discussion in MSDN. I tried to replicate this and it gave me a fix by changing the trust level for CAS in config file. But still I have a question with regards to how Report Viewer in Visual Studio behaves. Is there any similar setting that we use in the application config that can be used to improve development and test performance in Visual Studio.
MSDN Blog
Use the existing framework but force the use of Legacy CAS [code access security] Security
In Winforms <NetFx40_LegacySecurityPolicy enabled="true" />
In ASP Net application <trust legacyCasModel="true" level="Full"/>

Related

SSRS showing different data in reportserver and Microsoft Visual Studio

In Microsoft Visual Studio when i run a Report using a Preview the data is showing and when the same report i run from server side its not showing the same data as per the Visual Studio Preview
please suggest
Visual Studio caches locally data in order to reduce the generation time for design puroposes, it will only update the data if you change the parameters values so if your report doesn't have any parameter you will get old data.
To refresh Visual Studio data preview the report and press the refresh button inside the generated report.
Let me know if this can help you.
I had a very similar problem. When I previewed on VS 2015, everything displayed perfect, but when I deployed to my server successfully, only one field wasn't showing up.
What ended up working was changing my report data sets from shared to embedded. Even though they were referencing the same query, somehow there was a disconnect when referencing the shared data set rather than embedding it directly in the report.

Executing an SSRS 2012 report cause the browser not to respond

I am using Dynamics CRM 2013 on premise.
I have built all the reports based on stored procedures in SSRS.
one report however, that has no issue with execution definitions, permissions or what ever,
once executed causes to browser to crash (any browser, i tried FF, Chrome, IE9 and up, )
it seems the problem is not a report execution problem but a report rendering problem for this specific report.
I cannot cache the report or make a snapshot of it, as the values of the reports also depends on the user running the report (among other parameters user-defined) and each user should get a different result. - i have more than 400 users.
I have tried searching for any one who had face this kind of issue and reported on it but failed. hence decided to post this question my self.
if anyone has any idea, please share.
thanks
Have you enabled tracing/logging in SSRS? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms156500.aspx
You might turn on verbose logging while trying to run the report to see if you can get more helpful information.
If you write code, you can write a .NET application that calls the SSRS web services to render the report. Doing that will help you know for certain whether it's a browser rendering issue since you can get back the report as a byte array and save it to disk as Word, PDF, etc.

ReportViewer is slow on large reports despite ServerReport processing

I have observed performance problems when rendering a 1000-page ServerReport using Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms versions 10 and 11 in Visual Studio 2013, running against a SQL Server 2012 Report Server.
This is not a query performance problem, since the underlying stored procedure returns the data in a few seconds. Running the report through the Report Manager returns an HTML or PDF report in 30 seconds. It is only when the report is returned through the Report Viewer that an additional delay of several minutes is encountered. Neither PageCountMode.Estimate nor local processing of the report have helped.
It appears to be a rendering issue. This is unexpected, because the rendering should be happening on the server. The client machines are less powerful than the server, and we do in fact want the server to render the report.
Some of the rendering is in fact being done on the client, despite the fact that this is a ServerReport.
Examination of the ExecutionLog2 view in the ReportServer database shows that an RPL format is returned in, e.g., 30 seconds. However, even though this is a ServerReport, the client then spends several minutes apparently performing additional rendering. There is no additional delay for older versions of the ReportViewer, which receive HTML4.0 instead of RPL. There is also no additional delay when all rendering is performed on the Report Server, as through the Report Manager.
It would be possible to request HTML4.0 format through ServerReport.Render(), except that Render() cannot be called explicitly for a WebForms ReportViewer Control.
For large reports, it would be useful to be able to prevent the client from receiving RPL or performing any rendering. There is a Microsoft Connect item about this.

Does Microsoft SQL Report Builder require Reporting Services running at all?

I'm having trouble figuring this out.
I stopped ALL of local SQL Services, e.g. SQL Server, SQL Agent, Reporting Services. Then using Report Builder 2.0 to create a report connecting to a remote SQL Server (No SSRS running) out in the farm. When I click on "Run" button, for some odd reasons, it still render the report.
I thought you must have SSRS running in the first place. Is SQL Reporting Services even required for Report Builder?
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When Reporting Services runs a report, it creates a data file of the data used in the report and, if nothing changes, it uses that data the next time the report runs instead of hitting the server again. You could be seeing the cached data.
Look where the report is kept. There will be a report file, say MyReport.rdl and also the data, MyReport.rdl.data. You could delete that data file otherwise simply changing the report parameters (if you have some) will generally cause the report to disregard the cached data and make a trip to the server again.
I'm answering my own question. Here's my observation after some googling and experimenting.
Report Builder is using a stand alone report control to render report. Visual Studio.NET is probably using the same thing when preview a report. SSRS is required when developers need to incorporate web-based reporting solution, e.g. ASP.NET, as well as to manage reports.
What's really bothering me is that to author reports in VS.NET, I must be using Business Intelligence Projects. In order to do that, I must install SQL Server 2005/2008 with SSRS. Why is so when SSRS is not even required in a LOCAL environment?

When to use RDLC over RDL reports?

I have been studying SSRS 2005 / 2008 in the past weeks and have created some server side reports. For some application, a colleague suggested that I look into RDLC for that particular situation. I am now trying to get my head around the main difference between RDL and RDLC.
Searching for this information yields fragmented information at best. I have learned that:
RDLC reports do not store information about how to get data.
RDLC reports can be executed directly by the ReportViewer control.
But I still don't fully understand the relation between the RDLC file and the other related systems (the Reporting Server, the source database, the client).
In order to get a good grasp on RDLC files, I would like to know how their use differs from RDL files and in what situation one would choose RDLC over RDL. Links to resources are also welcome.
Update:
A thread on the ASP.NET forums discusses this same issue. From it, I have gained some better understanding on the issue.
A feature of RDLC is that it can be run completely client-side in the ReportViewer control.
This removes the need for a Reporting Services instance, and even removes the need for any database connection whatsoever, but:
It adds the requirement that the data that is needed in the report has to be provided manually.
Whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage depends on the particular application.
In my application, an instance of Reporting Services is available anyway and the required data for the reports can easily be pulled from a database. Is there any reason left for me to consider RDLC, or should I simply stick with RDL?
From my experience there are few things to think about both things:
I. RDL reports are HOSTED reports generally. This means you need to implement SSRS Server. They are a built in extension of Visual Studio from SQL Server for the reporting language. When you install SSRS you should have an add on called 'Business Intelligence Development Studio' which is much easier to work with the reports than without it.
R eport
D efinition
L angauge
Benefits of RDL reports:
You can host the reports in an environment that has services running for you on them.
You can configure security on an item or inheriting level to handle security as a standalone concept
You can configure the service to send out emails(provided you have an SMTP server you have access to) and save files on schedules
You have a database generally called 'ReportServer' you can query for info on the reports once published.
You can access these reports still through 'ReportViewer' in a client application written in ASP.NET, WPF (with a winform control bleh!), or Winforms in .NET using 'ProcessingMode.Remote'.
You can set parameters a user can see and use to gain more flexibility.
You can configure parts of a report to be used for connection strings as 'Data Sources' as well as a sql query, xml, or other datasets as a 'Dataset'. These parts and others can be stored and configured to cache data on a regular basis.
You can write .NET proxy classes of the services http:// /ReportServer/ReportingService2010 or /ReportExecution2005. You can then make up your OWN methods in .NET for emailing, saving, or manipulating SSRS data from the service directly of a Server hosting SSRS reports in code.
Programmatically Export SSRS report from sharepoint using ReportService2010.asmx
Downsides:
SSRS is kind of wonkey compared to other things on getting it up fast. Most people get confused by the security policy and designing reports as an 'add on' to VS. SQL 2005 = VS BIDS 2005 , SQL 2008 = VS BIDS 2008, SQL 2012 = VS BIDS 2010(LOL).
Continuing on 1 the policy for security settings IMHO are idiotically overcomplex. There is server security, database security and roles, two security settings on the page hosted for the service. Most people only set up an admin than can't get in and wonder why other users cannot. Most common complaint or question on SSRS is related to getting in generally from my experience.
You can use 'expressions' that will supposeduly 'enhance' your report. Often times you do more than a few and your report goes to a crawl in performance.
You have a set amount of things you can do and export to. SSRS has no hover over reporting I know of without a javascript hack.
Speed and performance can take a hit as the stupid SSRS config recycles the system and a first report can take a while at times just loading the site. You can get around this by altering it but I have found making a keep alive service for it works better.
II. RDLC reports are CLIENT CONTAINED reports that are NOT HOSTED ANYWHERE. The extra c in the name means 'Client'. Generally this is an extension of the RDL language meant for use only in Visual Studio Client Applications. It exists in Visual Studio when you add a 'reporting' item.
Benefits of RDLC reports:
You can hookup a wcf service much much much more easier to the dataset.
You have more control over the dataset and can use POCO classes filled with Entity framework objects or ADO.NET directly as well as tables themselves. You can monkey with the data for optimization it before binding it to the report.
You can customize the look more with add on's directly in code behind.
Downsides:
You need to handle parameters on your own and while you can implement wrapper methods to help the legwork is a little more than expected and unfortunate.
The user cannot SEE the parameters in a 'ReportViewer' control unless it is in remote mode and accessing an RLD report. Thus you need to make textboxes, dropdowns, radio buttons on your own outside the control to pass to it. Some people like this added control, I do not personally.
Anything you want to do with servicing the reports for distribution you need to build yourself. Emailing, subscriptions, saving. Sorry you need to build that in .NET or else implement a proxy that already does that from above you could just be getting using hosted reports.
Honestly I like both for different purposes. If I want something to go out to analysts that they use all the time and tweak for graphs, charts, drill downs and exports to Excel I use RDL and just have SSRS's site do all the legwork of handling the email distributions. If I want an application that has a report section and I know that application is its own module with rules and governance I use an RDLC and having the parameters be smaller and be driven by the decisions the user made before getting to the report part of what client they are on and site and then they usually just choose a time frame or type and nothing more. So generally a complex report I would use RDL and for something simple I would use RDLC IMHO.
Q: What is the difference between RDL and RDLC formats?
A: RDL files are created by the SQL
Server 2005 version of Report
Designer. RDLC files are created by
the Visual Studio 2008 version of
Report Designer.
RDL and RDLC formats have the same XML
schema. However, in RDLC files, some
values (such as query text) are
allowed to be empty, which means that
they are not immediately ready to be
published to a Report Server. The
missing values can be entered by
opening the RDLC file using the SQL
Server 2005 version of Report
Designer. (You have to rename .rdlc to
.rdl first.)
RDL files are fully compatible with
the ReportViewer control runtime.
However, RDL files do not contain some
information that the design-time of
the ReportViewer control depends on
for automatically generating
data-binding code. By manually binding
data, RDL files can be used in the
ReportViewer control. New! See also
the RDL Viewer sample program.
Note that the ReportViewer control
does not contain any logic for
connecting to databases or executing
queries. By separating out such logic,
the ReportViewer has been made
compatible with all data sources,
including non-database data sources.
However this means that when an RDL
file is used by the ReportViewer
control, the SQL related information
in the RDL file is simply ignored by
the control. It is the host
application's responsibility to
connect to databases, execute queries
and supply data to the ReportViewer
control in the form of ADO.NET
DataTables.
http://www.gotreportviewer.com/
I have always thought the different between RDL and RDLC is that RDL are used for SQL Server Reporting Services and RDLC are used in Visual Studio for client side reporting. The implemenation and editor are almost identical. RDL stands for Report Defintion Language and RDLC Report Definition Language Client-side.
I hope that helps.
From my experience, if you need high performance (this does depend slightly on your client specs) on large reports, go with rdlc. Additionally, rdlc reports give you a very full range of control over your data, you may be able to save yourself wasted database trips, etc. by using client side reports. On the project I'm currently working on, a critical report requires about 2 minutes to render on the server side, and pretty much takes out whichever reporting server it hits for that time. Switching it to client side rendering, we see performance much closer to 20-40 seconds with no load on the report server and less bandwidth used because only the datasets are being downloaded.
Your mileage may vary, and I find rdlc's add development and maintenance complexity, especially when your report has been designed as a server side report.
Some of these points have been addressed above, but here's my 2-cents for VS2008 environment.
RDL (Remote reports): Much better development experience, more flexibility if you need to use some advanced features like scheduling, ad-hoc reporting, etc...
RDLC (Local reports): Better control over the data before sending it to the report (easier to validate or manipulate the data prior to sending it to the report). Much easier deployment, no need for an instance of Reporting Services.
One HUGE caveat with local reports is a known memory leak that can severely affect performance if your clients will be running numerous large reports. This is supposed to be addressed with the new VS2010 version of the report viewer.
In my case, since we have an instance of Reporting Services available, I develop new reports as RDLs and then convert them to local reports (which is easy) and deploy them as local reports.
If you have a reporting services infrastructure available to you, use it. You will find RDL development to be a bit more pleasant. You can preview the report, easily setup parameters, etc.
While I currently lean toward RDL because it seems more flexible and easier to manage, RDLC has an advantage in that it seems to simplify your licensing. Because RDLC doesn’t need a Reporting Services instance, you won't need a Reporting Services License to use it.
I’m not sure if this still applies with the newer versions of SQL Server, but at one time if you chose to put the SQL Server Database and Reporting Services instances on two separate machines, you were required to have two separate SQL Server licenses:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sqlgetstarted/thread/82dd5acd-9427-4f64-aea6-511f09aac406/
You can Bing for other similar blogs and posts regarding Reporting Services licensing.
For VS2008, I believe RDL gives you better editing features than RDLC. For example, I can change the Bold on a selected amount of text in a textbox with RDL, while in RDLC it's is not possible.
RDL: abcd efgh ijklmnop
RDLC: abcd efgh ijklmnop -or- abcd efgh ijklmnop (are your only options)
This is because RDLC is using a earlier namespace/formatting from 2005, while RDL is using 2008. This however will change with VS2010
If we have fewer number of reports which are less complex and consumed by asp.net web pages.
It's better to go with rdlc,reason is we can avoid maintaing reports on RS instance.
but we have to fetch the data from DB manually and bind it to rdlc.
Cons:designing rdlc in visual studio is little difficult compared to SSrs designer.
Pro:Maintenance is easy.
while exporting the report from we page,observed that performance gain compared to server side reports.
if you want to use report in asp.net then use .rdl
if you want to use /view in report builder / report server then use .rdlc
just by converting format manually it works