load balanced scale out deployment issues

Hello,
I have a scale out deployment of Reporting Services consisting of 2 Report
Servers in a load balanced cluster using an F5 BigIP setup in RoundRobin
mode, and the report catalog db sits on on a separate sql server. We use a
vIP with a DNS name that hits the F5. The F5, in turn, is setup to "choose"
one of the 2 Report Servers using the machine name address. Note that this
is for an intranet.
We are not currently using HTTPS (SSL) in our environment, but eventually
we'll turn it on, so ignore that piece of the puzzle for this scenario.
When configuring the scale-out deployment, we followed the instructions on
the Books Online article "Configuring a Report Server Scale-out Deployment."
The last piece of this document instructs us to modify the
RSWebApplication.config file for all the servers in the scale out deployment,
setting the <ReportServerUrl> element to use the virtual server name (vIP
DNS, we assumed), instead of the machine name. However, this element did not
contain a value originally.
The next step was to modify the RSReportServer.config file, to set the
<UrlRoot> element with the virtual server name (again, vIP dns). UrlRoot's
original value as the url <servername>/reportserver.
Once this change was made, I reset IIS on both servers, and hit each
localhost's Report manager to fire up the applications. However, I received
the following error "ReportServerUrl Configuration element is not a valid
configuration..." on both Report Manager web apps.
Note that before we made the above change to ReportServerUrl and UrlRoot,
both servers worked fine. So, I went back in and removed the value from
ReportServerUrl, but left the UrlRoot with the vIP name. Reset IIS, and the
error went away!
I am a little confused as to what these two settings are used for, since the
original value of ReportServerUrl was blank (UrlRoot actually had the machine
name address).
Could someone explain the cause of this error, and suggest a best practice
for this scenario. I would like to use the most efficient configuration
between the Report Servers and the F5 load balancer, and what other changes
would we be looking at once we turn on SSL?
Thanks!
--
Regards,
Thiago Silvabtw, this is using SSRS 2005 (Enterprise Edition, of course, since it's a web
farm).
--
Regards,
"HC" wrote:
> Hello,
> I have a scale out deployment of Reporting Services consisting of 2 Report
> Servers in a load balanced cluster using an F5 BigIP setup in RoundRobin
> mode, and the report catalog db sits on on a separate sql server. We use a
> vIP with a DNS name that hits the F5. The F5, in turn, is setup to "choose"
> one of the 2 Report Servers using the machine name address. Note that this
> is for an intranet.
> We are not currently using HTTPS (SSL) in our environment, but eventually
> we'll turn it on, so ignore that piece of the puzzle for this scenario.
> When configuring the scale-out deployment, we followed the instructions on
> the Books Online article "Configuring a Report Server Scale-out Deployment."
> The last piece of this document instructs us to modify the
> RSWebApplication.config file for all the servers in the scale out deployment,
> setting the <ReportServerUrl> element to use the virtual server name (vIP
> DNS, we assumed), instead of the machine name. However, this element did not
> contain a value originally.
> The next step was to modify the RSReportServer.config file, to set the
> <UrlRoot> element with the virtual server name (again, vIP dns). UrlRoot's
> original value as the url <servername>/reportserver.
> Once this change was made, I reset IIS on both servers, and hit each
> localhost's Report manager to fire up the applications. However, I received
> the following error "ReportServerUrl Configuration element is not a valid
> configuration..." on both Report Manager web apps.
> Note that before we made the above change to ReportServerUrl and UrlRoot,
> both servers worked fine. So, I went back in and removed the value from
> ReportServerUrl, but left the UrlRoot with the vIP name. Reset IIS, and the
> error went away!
> I am a little confused as to what these two settings are used for, since the
> original value of ReportServerUrl was blank (UrlRoot actually had the machine
> name address).
> Could someone explain the cause of this error, and suggest a best practice
> for this scenario. I would like to use the most efficient configuration
> between the Report Servers and the F5 load balancer, and what other changes
> would we be looking at once we turn on SSL?
> Thanks!
> --
> Regards,
> Thiago Silva