SQL Server Reporting services migration (2008 to 2012)

Question

We have a SSRS 2008 (not R2) instance with a few hundred reports, and now, on a new machine we have installed a 2012 instance of SSRS. We need to migrate all the reports, while keeping all their rights and privileges, plus the datasources with credentials (some of them have local data sources). Is there a way to achieve this? The high number of reports does not allow us do it manually one by one. We tried to migrate a report, but as I said, the rights and credentials were lost. Any ideas?

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

Best is to use Reporting Services Scripter

Reporting Services Scripter is a .NET Windows Forms application that enables the scripting and transfer of groups of SSRS catalog items from one server to another or from one SSRS folder to another on the same server. Reporting Services Scripter is flexible and lets you transfer catalog item properties, such as serverside report parameters, Subscriptions (both normal and data-driven), Descriptions, History options, and Execution options (including both report-specific schedule and shared schedule execution options) to other SQL Server instances.

Kevin Kline highlights the functionality here and there is a good article by Dale Kelly for migrating reports using RSScripter at MSSQLTips.

Another way is to use the power of PowerShell. There are many script available like here and here.

There is other utility (which I have not used) called reportsync

Answer 2

One other solution is to backup the ReportServer database from your SSRS backend SQL Server and restore to SQL 2012/2014 and do an in place upgrade. Some Data source connection/password information may be lost unless you backup and restore the master keys as well.

Nahci