Reporting Services 2008 Upgrade FAQs

September 15th, 2008 Russell Posted in SQL Reporting Services |

Late last week I stumbled into a really informative conversation around how 2005 reports are “automagically” upgraded to 2008. Thought I’d post the broad strokes here in FAQ format for everyone’s use. Thanks to Robert Bruckner who contributed most of the information! 

Q: If I upgrade my instance of SSRS 2005 to 2008, what happens to the reports in reportserver database? Do they get automatically upgraded? 

A: Reports in the catalog are automatically upgraded from 2005 to 2008 when they are first run on the newly upgraded machine. Each report is upgraded only once, not each time it is run.  

Q: If my report gets automatically upgraded to the 2008 schema, can I get my original 2005 report back somehow?  

A: Yes, you can. The upgrade process does not actually delete the original 2005 report, but simply makes a copy of it and stores the compiled result. If you “Edit” the report using Report Manager (to download a copy of the RDL) or call GetReportDefinition(), the original 2005 report definition will be returned. 

Q: What if the report doesn’t get upgraded for some reason – will it still run on 2008? 

A: SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 has the ability to render reports using the new “on demand” engine, and the older 2005 engine. 

Q: So, if my 2005 report gets automatically upgraded to the 2008 RDL schema, is there any way I can get the upgraded version (2008) out of the server for use elsewhere? 

A: No. You’ll need to use BIDS or Report Builder (v2) to upgrade your 2005 report to the 2008 schema. 

Q: I know that every once in a while, a 2005 report won’t auto-upgrade to 2008 successfully. How can I tell if a report I’m running is being rendered in 2005 or 2008 mode? 

A: We attempt to upgrade a 2005 report to 2008 once and only once. If the process fails the first time, we don’t try again. To see which engine is being used to render a report, use the new ExecutionLog2 view in the reportserver database, examine the AdditionalInfo column and check the <ProcessingEngine> element. A value of 2 indicates the new 2008 “on demand” rendering engine was used, while a value of 1 means the older, 2005 engine was used.