The data model abstracts the database and gives users a view of the database that makes sense to them. A developer must create a data model (which is a DataSet that contains related data) and users can create reports based on this DataSet. Report Builder is not simpler or easier to use, but it doesn’t allow users to access the database directly. Report Builder has the same functionality as the Report Designer, but it has an Office like interface and it’s addressed to end users (or information workers, as Microsoft likes to call them).
In addition to the Report Designer, you can also download and use a newer report designing tool, the Report Builder. For example, a manager may decide to have certain reports delivered every Monday to his mailbox, or post certain reports in XML format every morning to an FTP server, from which a third party can grab it. Some of you may be already considering security: should I make my company's information available over the Internet? The Report Server comes with a Web-based interface, the Report Manager, that allows administrators to control which users view which reports and which users are allowed to administer their reports and to what extent. This takes care of the sharing of the information and it's handed by the Report Server. Reports are deployed to a server and users can connect to it and view them in their browser. You can preview the reports right in the Designer and when you're satisfied with their appearance you can deploy them.
The BI Development Studio is a standalone Windows application (it's actually very similar to Visual Studio) that allows you design reports with point and click operations.
When you create a report, the BI Development Studio is a report designer. Actually, there's no such tool per se, there's an application called SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio, which is a development tool for creating all types of Business Intelligence projects. The Report Designer is a developer’s tool for designing reports. First, it should allow users to create reports. To better understand these components let's look at the basic operations of a reporting system. SSRS is not a tool for building reports (there are many tools in this category). The third component that facilitates the sharing of the information is the Reporting Services. The Business Intelligence platform, as it's referred to by Microsoft, contains several components for exploiting and sharing data: Integration Services allow you to integrate SQL Server database with other sources of data, Analysis Services allow you to mine your data in powerful ways and locate facts and patterns that are impossible to infer from raw data. And this is where Business Intelligence comes into the picture. The information stored in a database needs to be transformed and shared. They need aggregated data that convey the most relevant information for their decision making. And in most cases, management isn’t interested in long, detailed lists of data. In addition to maintaining information in a database, we should be able to retrieve the data we’re interested in and share it with others. DBAs manipulate the data in a database using SQL statements. Designing interfaces to manipulate the data in your database is your responsibility, as a developer, and you can access databases from any language. SQL Server is a database management system (DMBS) designed to store and retrieve data very efficiently. SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based reporting tool and is part of a larger component of SQL Server known as Business Intelligence. Reporting Services as a Business Intelligence Tool SQL Server Reporting Services is a system for designing, deploying, managing and delivering reports based on SQL databases. Sure, Reporting Services is also a reporting tool, but this description doesn’t make justice to the product. SQL Server Reporting Services is such a solution it’s a flexible, powerful, scalable business intelligence tool. If you’ve mastered SQL Server, you’re a database administrator for SQL Server, you’re writing data-driven applications, or you’re just tired of writing SQL statements to retrieve the data your users need and dump them to an Excel worksheet, it’s time to explore a total reporting solution that will enable you to deliver the necessary reports to the right people. Sharing Information with SQL Server Reporting Services