I'm not sure what the interviewer was looking for here. If you need to run SSRS on a separate server from the SQL Server then there are the licensing costs. I've found it to be a pretty robust reporting environment. It's kind of a pain to setup, but once it's up and running I haven't had many problems with it. When in an interview and you are asked a question like this, try and lead the interviewer into directing you into the direction that they are trying to get you to go. Or tell them "None that I'm aware of, what drawbacks have you seen?" and see what they say. This way you'll get additional information from them. I know that when I'm interviewing DBAs (or really anyone) I've got no problem passing along information to them, so that even if they don't get the job, at least they can get some information that they might find useful in the position that they do get. **************************************************************** -jaideep For many years Microsoft had no direct solution for reporting with the SQL server except their dependency on Crystal Reports. With SQL Server 2005 onwards they have come up with SSRS – SQL Server Reporting Services, but as such this is no better than Crystal Reports although it comes bundled with the Server. The components of this are: 1. Report Builder 2. Report Designer 3. Report Server 4. Report Manager 5. Datasource 6. Report Server Database The drawbacks are (that you can reply in your interview): 1. It is complex as of now to understand the complete functionality and structure of this new component 2. Users are still depending on Crystal reports as they are more confident as used to compared to SSRS 3. Report Designer is for developers for standard reports and report builder is for end users for designing their simple formatted reports. 4. Complete understanding and exposure to both is important to utilize both functions fully and extensively 5. For end users using report builder, data models or report models are used 6. Report model generation rules building is a complex process 7. Report exporting to excel beyond a particular size results in loss of data -jaideep

I'm not sure what the interviewer was looking for here. If you need to run SSRS on a separate server from the SQL Server then there are the licensing costs. I've found it to be a pretty robust reporting environment. It's kind of a pain to setup, but once it's up and running I haven't had many problems with it. When in an interview and you are asked a question like this, try and lead the interviewer into directing you into the direction that they are trying to get you to go. Or tell them "None that I'm aware of, what drawbacks have you seen?" and see what they say. This way you'll get additional information from them. I know that when I'm interviewing DBAs (or really anyone) I've got no problem passing along information to them, so that even if they don't get the job, at least they can get some information that they might find useful in the position that they do get. **************************************************************** -jaideep For many years Microsoft had no direct solution for reporting with the SQL server except their dependency on Crystal Reports. With SQL Server 2005 onwards they have come up with SSRS – SQL Server Reporting Services, but as such this is no better than Crystal Reports although it comes bundled with the Server. The components of this are: 1. Report Builder 2. Report Designer 3. Report Server 4. Report Manager 5. Datasource 6. Report Server Database The drawbacks are (that you can reply in your interview): 1. It is complex as of now to understand the complete functionality and structure of this new component 2. Users are still depending on Crystal reports as they are more confident as used to compared to SSRS 3. Report Designer is for developers for standard reports and report builder is for end users for designing their simple formatted reports. 4. Complete understanding and exposure to both is important to utilize both functions fully and extensively 5. For end users using report builder, data models or report models are used 6. Report model generation rules building is a complex process 7. Report exporting to excel beyond a particular size results in loss of data -jaideep