Over the past several years, MIcrosoft has had several reporting and business intelligence streams working somewhat in siloes – we have currently DataZen, Power BI, Excel Services, Power View, SSRS and various other dashboarding components in Microsoft’s other products (Visio, CRM, SharePoint, etc.). Each tool provides different benefits and is targeted to different audiences.
With the latest announcements about SQL Server 2016, Microsoft is starting to provide a more cohesive and integrated vision that integrates their various reporting tools into a common platform. Some of these key changes were announced at PASS this week and others have already been released as part of CTM versions of SQL Server 2016.
Power BI for the Cloud, SSRS for On Premise
Power BI will continue to be a 100% dedicated cloud service but SQL Server Reporting Services is being revamped to be the equivalent platform on premise. You will be able to build SSRS reports and deploy them to Power BI and develop Power BI and publish them to SSRS.
SSRS will be Responsive
The new version of SSRS will be designed for responsive to support HTML 5 based browsers on phones and tablets.
One Mobile App for BI
Microsoft is going to provide a unified mobile experience based on DataZen technologies. The mobile app will be able to deliver both Power BI and SSRS reports and dashboards through a single user experience.
