Scale-out deployments are used to increase scalability of report servers to handle more concurrent users and larger report execution loads. It can also be used to dedicate specific servers to process interactive or scheduled reports. Scale-out deployments consist of:

• Two or more report server instances sharing a single report server database.
  
• Optionally, a network load-balanced (NLB) cluster to spread interactive user load across the report server instances.
  

When deploying Reporting Services on an NLB cluster, you need to ensure the NLB virtual server name is used in the configuration of report server URLs and that servers are configured to share the same view state.

Reporting Services does not participate in Microsoft Cluster Services clusters. However, you can create the report server database on a Database Engine instance that is part of a failover cluster.

To plan, install, and configure a scale-out deployment, follow these steps:

• Review Planning for Scale-Out Deployment for guidelines on when to use a scale-out deployment.
  
• Review How to: Install SQL Server 2008 (Setup) for instructions on how to install report server instances.
  
• Review How to: Configure a Report Server Scale-Out Deployment (Reporting Services Configuration) for instructions on how to share a report server database and join report servers to a scale-out.
  
• Optionally, if you are configuring the scale-out to run on a network load-balanced cluster, review How to: Configure a Report Server on a Network Load Balancing Cluster for instructions on how to configure view state validation.
  

See Also