Move SSRS engine to new server, but keep same reporting databases

Question

We have our SQL Server reporting services (2008 R2) setup as follows:

ServerA: contains the reporting services engine (including the report manager URL, web service URL and so on).

ServerB: Is the sql server instance that hosts the reporting databases for ServerA (ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB).

ServerA is EOL and will be replaced by ServerC. I have two questions:

1. How do we proceed to install Reporting Services on ServerC so that it points to the databases on ServerB.
2. How do we migrate the reports (and settings) from ServerA to ServerC. Will this be automatic by pointing ServerC to the exiting databases on ServerB.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You need to:

• Back up your encryption key using the SSRS configuration manager on ServerA
• Make a note of any custom changes you have made to the RSReportServer.config file on ServerA, any custom assemblies will also need to be migrated (if you have a default install, you won't need to worry too much about this)
• Install Reporting Services on ServerC (choose the install but do not configure option)
• Configure your reporting services URLs on ServerC using SSRS config manager
• Re-import the encryption key into ServerC using SSRS configuration manager
• Configure the report server to connect to the report server databases on ServerB using SSRS config manager
• Uninstall and decomission ServerA

All your reports and datasources/schedules etc are in the database, all the passwords etc are encrypted with the key that you exported from the old server and imported into the new one so everything should be there once you connect to the new server.

Microsoft have migration scenarios etc here, although it's all pretty simple to figure out:

How to: Migrate a Reporting Services Installation