SQL Azure Reporting is announced!

With SQL Azure Reporting Services you can use SSRS as a service on the Azure platform with all the benefits of Azure and the most features and capabilities of premise. It’s also possible to embed your reports in your Windows or Azure applications.

Benefits of the Azure platform for Azure Reporting Services are:

• Highly available, the cloud services platform has built-in high availability and fault tolerance
• Scalable, the cloud services platform automatically scales up and down
• Secure, your reports and SQL Azure databases are on a safe place in the cloud
• Cost effective, you don’t have to set up servers and you don’t have to invest in managing servers
• Use the same tools you use today to develop your solutions. Just develop your reports in BIDS or Report Builder and deploy to Azure

Disadvantages are:

• SQL Azure databases are the only supported data sources in the first version, more data sources are expected to come
• No developer extensibility in the first version, so no custom data sources, assemblies, report items or authentication
• No subscriptions or scheduled delivery
• No Windows Authentication, only SQL Azure username/password is supported in the first version, similar to SQL Azure database. When SQL Azure database gets Windows Authentication, Azure Reporting will follow

Despite the disadvantages of the first version I think SQL Azure Reporting Services offers great capabilities and can be extremely useful for a lot of organizations.
I’m really curious about the CTP, which will be available before the end of this year. You can sign up for the SQL Azure Reporting CTP here

Read more about SQL Azure Reporting here