Pricing and Licensing
Finally, it's worth taking a look at the licensing scheme for Reporting Services, and the implications of this for your costs. Microsoft has posted a Licensing FAQ to help you sort these issues out, but here are the salient points. First, if you own a SQL Server 2000 license, you're licensed to run Reporting Services. That means that if you want to run Reporting Services on the same server as SQL Server, you're covered. But remember, this means that you also need to have IIS 6 installed on that server, and the server itself has to be hefty enough to handle the additional load of constructing and delivering reports, as well as its current database tasks.
Many organizations will probably find that they need to split Reporting Services off to its own server. This means buying another server, licensing SQL Server (the full product; Reporting Services doesn't work with MSDE), and of course setting everything up - costs that can easily run into four or five figures. So keep an eye on memory and CPU utilization, as well as statistics within SQL Server, as you evaluate this software for actual production use.
