SSRS reports' access methods

Question

I'm currently using Reporting Services from SQL Server 2012. I know that one of the most common possibility to access reports is to use web server from SSRS itself with its web service. My question is: do we have other possibilities to access these reports, like from our own web page on our own server e.g. IIS or Apache? And do we still need this web server integrated with SSRS?

Answer 1

Sounds like you are looking for this document specifying methods applications can use SSRS. It provides links on how you can implement three methods of server access:

• Using the web service
• the ReportViewer control
• URL access.

URL access can be very easy to implement, you can get the resulting report as a stream and pass it on to the client, save it, display it, &c.

Note that even Report Manager is built using these methods.

Answer 2

There are two methods to access the reports : either from the SSRS web server or from SharePoint.

Note that you can always create a web application that pulls the report list from SSRS and display those reports as you wish by using the SSRS web services.