Configure MS Dynamics CRM 2011/2013/2015 to use multiple Report Servers (SSRS)

This week I've had quite a bit of fun turning the resilience up to 11 for our production environment of MS Dynamics CRM 2013.

In this post I will discuss how to configure Ms Dynamics CRM 2013 to use multiple SSRS servers, thus ensuring that reporting functionality is as resilient as the rest of the system.

In order to achieve this we need to make changes to AD, the SSRS configuration and finally MS Dynamics CRM. 

It's worth pointing out that this could well be overkill for your system, and to a certain extent it is for ours, but the whole architecture must be resilient is the diktat from above so ...

Pre-Requisites:

• 1 x Load Balancer (Distributing traffic to SSRS Servers on correct port, normally 80).
• 1 x VIP.
• 1 x DNS Record (For VIP above).
• 2+ x SSRS Servers in a scale out deployment.
• SSRS configured to use a domain account.
• Permissions to set SPNs on your domain and edit at least ssrs service account.

My Setup:

DNS record is: CRMReports.dev.local
SSRS Service Account:  dev\svc-ssrs

1. Active Directory

The first thing to do is to set up an Service Name Principal for the account that's running the SSRS service, which can be done with the following commands:

setspn -S HTTP/<VIP FQDN> <SSRS Service account>
setspn -S HTTP/<VIP Name> <SSRS Service account>

So in my case:

setspn -S HTTP/CRMReports.dev.local dev\svc-ssrs
setspn -S HTTP/CRMReports dev\svc-ssrs

The next thing is to ensure that the account is enabled for delegation, so from Active Directory Users and Computers console.

Note that the delegation tab will only appear after an SPN has been set up for that account.

2. SSRS

The first thing to do in the report server, is to enable Kerberos authentication, which can be done by editing the rsreportserver.config file. This file is normally found in this directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS11.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer\

Look for the Authentication section and enable Kerberos and Negotiate as below (I've commented out NTLM in case I wanted to go back)

<Authentication>
  <AuthenticationTypes>
   <RSWindowsKerberos/>
   <RSWindowsNegotiate/>
   <!--<RSWindowsNTLM/>-->
  </AuthenticationTypes>
  <RSWindowsExtendedProtectionLevel>Off</RSWindowsExtendedProtectionLevel>
  <RSWindowsExtendedProtectionScenario>Proxy</RSWindowsExtendedProtectionScenario>
  <EnableAuthPersistence>true</EnableAuthPersistence>
 </Authentication>

From the Reporting Services Configuration Manager, Click on Web Service URL and then click on Advanced

Click on Add as highlighted.

Enter the host header name, which will be the DNS Record for the VIP, in my case: crmreports.dev.local and click OK to accept.

Repeat this process for the Report Manager Url.

Once done repeat all steps on section 2 on the other report servers.

3. MS Dynamics CRM

The process is relatively simple and it involves editing the organization to point to the new report server dns, i.e. crmreports.dev.local in my case.

From the Deployment Manager, select organization and Disable your organization(s).

Click Edit Organization.

Set the new report server Url.

 Ensure that all checks are ok.

Congratulations, you now have a resilient reporting service for MS Dynamics CRM.