Reporting Tool Architecture

[Bob]

I wonder if someone can point me to a document that describes the reporting architecture. 

My main question has to do with the stand alone report designer and whether it needs to have direct access to the data source, or whether it operates against a webservice of some type. 

Also, is there a report server, or is the report generated on the web server?

I haven't been able to find an architectural overview type document that answers these questions.

thanks,
BOb

[Stef]

Hi Bob,

In general the report is a .NET object or serialized in XML format definition is processed on the server machine. What and when happens is described in the Report Life Cycle help article.

To connect to data you can use any of the dedicated data source components, beneath which we use standard .NET approaches to retrieve data from models, custom business object, databases and etc. The Standalone Designer can be extended to use all of the available data source components as described in the Extending Report Designer and related articles. Thus you can use existing database, XML files, oData feeds for example.

Let us know if you have any further questions.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik