Sql Server Reporting Services (SRS) Scaleability and Licensing - Part 2

...okay, so Licensing for Sql Server Reporting Services IS a little more expensive when scaled-out...

In my previous post on "Sql Server Reporting Services (SRS) Scaleability and Licensing" I explained how to scale Sql Reporting services and how this impacts licensing.   However, my understanding of licensing for seperate Web & DB tiers was a bit skewed.  

After receiving a few emails on the topic, I researched this again since my knowledge of licensing was mostly hold-over from pre-beta days for Sql Server 2000 Reporting Services when it was going to be "Free" so long as you had legal licenses for the Sql Server 2000 instance(s) holding the ReportServer DB. 

I think this article on Sql Server 2000 best explains the fact that a Sql Server license is required for each and every server upon which Reporting Services components are installed.  This is further explained in this licensing whitepaper for Sql Server 2005 [msword] where they lump Reporting Services licensing into the category of Business Intelligence.

Having said this, Sql Server Reporting Services is still quite economical for most implementations, and the additional cost for the scale-out scenarios will typically be justified by the business need that lead you there in the first place (lots of users, reports, or need for reliability).

I think my next project is to reevaluate the cost and ROI of Reporting Services vs Business Objects and other competitors.  I havent revisited this exercise since before Reporting Services was launched, so its probably time again.  However, with the additional tools and features in Sql Server 2005, I feel that there will be a much better match-up this time since it is a much more mature product.