When I try to install the Reporting Services on a second node of a failover cluster, I get the following error message:
Existing clustered or cluster-prepared instance failed. The instance selected for installation is already installed and clustered on node 2.
But, we never installed it before. Does anyone have any ideas? This is on Windows 2008 server 64-bit.
Apparently, SQL Server can be installed on each node on a failover cluster. The caveat is that it must be two separate installations with two different instance names. You can, however, share the same report server database. Please read this article for more information on deploying Reporting Services.
Just one thing though. You have to install Reporting Services using the Enterprise Edition media and to avoid doing all kinds of nasty stuff to the Licensing the fail-over cluster also have to be Enterprise Edition. If you try to do this using the SQL Server Standard media you will not be able to install SSRS to a "Shared Database" and the encryption information in the database created by instance #1 will be mercilessly blasted into oblivion. This will result in instance 1 of SSRS not working while instance 2 (on the second server) is working. Trying to fix this will only flip the situation.
Personally i find this to be quite the bummer from Microsoft since it practically means that you have to weigh the cost of Enterprise Edition against HA-enabling Reporting Services.
So basically, you have to acquire Enterprise Edition if you do not want your Reporting Services to be the Single Point of Failure.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159114.aspx
Consider this article on SSRS scale out process. Install the shared report server database on the cluster. Then install reporting services to use the shared database. Reporting services will not failover, but the database will.
This is an option to failover IIS: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970759