Here’s the deal: if you liked Teo Lachev’s book "Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005", which I did, then you’ll like "Applied Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services". Both books share the same format and approach and are exhaustive guides to their subjects.
In case you’ve not seen one of Teo’s books before, though, what should you expect? Well, "Applied Reporting Services 2008" is 750 pages long and covers just about every aspect of Reporting Services 2008 that’s worth covering, from installation to report design to management to security to extensibility in great detail. This probably isn’t a book you’re going to sit down and read from cover to cover, but it’s a great reference guide and Teo’s prose is very clear so reading individual chapters as and when you need to is no chore. The best thing about this book, though, is the fact that on every page you can see Teo’s vast real-world experience showing through. For some reason many books on Reporting Services fall into the trap of being Books Online rewritten, never telling you the stuff you really need to know; this book on the other hand is a goldmine of information on how things really work. Let me take the chapter I can really speak from authority on – the chapter on using Reporting Services with Analysis Services. Every other SSRS book I’ve seen has been written by someone with clearly no practical experience of using SSAS and SSRS together, and parrots the usual line about ‘great integration’ and ‘easy-to-use MDX query designer’ etc. Teo on the other hand has, for the first time anywhere, put together all the tips and tricks I’ve ever seen (plus a few I haven’t) on this topic in one place – he lists the pros and cons of the built-in Analysis Services datasource and the OLEDB datasource and how to work around them, how to handle parent/child hierarchies, using extended properties, the lot.
All in all, then, a very highly recommended book; it’s ideal for both beginners and experienced developers and probably the only Reporting Services 2008 book you’ll ever need. You can read some sample chapters and see video demos on the book website here:
http://www.prologika.com/Books/0976635313/Book.aspx
