Step-by-Step Instructions

Before getting started I would like to point out the other blogs in this series. If you do not need help with the installation of the SQL Server 2012 bits then perhaps one of the other blogs will be of help.

Installation Order:

1. SQL Server 2012 (RC0) Business Intelligence Configuration
2. SQL Server 2012 (RC0) Installation and Configuration
3. SharePoint 2010 Installation for SQL Server 2012 (RC0)
4. Additional SSAS Instance Installations in SQL Server 2012 (RC0)
5. SQL Server 2012 (RC0) PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 Configuration
6. SQL Server 2012 (RC0) SSRS Configuration in SharePoint Integrated Mode (including Power View) (Coming Soon)
7. SSRS Alerting (Coming Soon)
8. MDS (Coming Soon)

    

The SQL Server 2012 RC0 bits can be downloaded here. When you get your hands on the installation media click on the install file to open the SQL Server Installation Center. I will not cover it here, but the initial screen displayed contains a variety of Planning resources that can be used to help determine if your server meets the minimum requirements for a SQL installation, as well as resources to run a few tests to see if your server is eligible for an upgrade from a previous version of SQL.

After you are satisfied you have exhausted your ability use the resources on the Planning tab (or if you are impatient like me), click on the Installation link on the left side of the menu. Since I am installing everything on a single server, I then click on the option to install a new stand-alone SQL Server.

At this point the installation will check some Setup Support Rules. If you did not restart your computer after you ran some Windows Updates you may require a server restart. Additionally, you may need to install .NET. I would recommend taking care of any issues or warnings that occur in this screen so you can be confident that your installation will go smoothly.

If everything passes go ahead and click OK. The next screen will check for any available updates, when this is complete click Next. The installation process will then install some additional setup files. Again, let the process do its thing and then click the Install button.

Again a few Rule checks are performed, however, this time there are a few Warnings. One warning lets us know that we are installing SQL on a domain controller. This is okay, and in fact, this is intentional. Since we are installing everything on a single server there is no way to avoid this. The second warning lets us know that there is a potential issue with the Windows Firewall. This is a warning that I could fix. However, since I am never going to need to have any of the SQL services access resources outside of this single server the firewall warning will never cause an issue. If there aren't any other issues, once again click on Next.

The next screen asks for a Product Key. Since I am installing the RC0 bits I don't need one, I can leave the edition as Evaluation and continue. The last step before we begin setting up the server roles makes us agree to the License Terms. Click the check boxes as needed, and continue to the next step of the setup.

Now it gets a little more interesting. We are going to start installing the SQL Server services that will provide us with all of the functionality within the BI stack. On the Setup Role screen, we are first going to select the SQL Server Feature Installation option. You will see this screen a couple times in the future if you plan on coming back and modifying the current installation or if you plan to install additional instances of SSAS in Tabular mode or PowerPivot for SharePoint. I prefer to pick the SQL Server Feature Installtion option over the All Features With Defaults because I prefer to walk through the setup of each service. Click Next to continue to the next screen.

On this screen, we get to pick the Features we would like to include on our server. Since we are installing everything on a single server this is super simple, select everything! In a typical production environment on a select few services would be installed on the server, with other services being distributed amongst other servers in the farm (SSAS and SSRS for example).

Note: Since I already know I am going to install one of each available SSAS services (Multi-dimensional, Tabular, and PowerPivot) I prefer to just install the standard Multi-dimensional version first. Later in this blog series I return to these same setup screens and install SSAS services for both Tabular Mode and PowerPivot.

I would like to point out that we are installing Reporting Services in both Native and SharePoint mode, along with the Add-in for SharePoint Products. This is okay even though we don't have SharePoint installed yet. We will install the Add-in for SharePoint now and apply it to our SharePoint installation when we configure SSRS. If you know that you are only going to use SSRS in SharePoint Integrated mode you can unselect the option to also install Reporting Services in Native mode. Since I am building a demo server I will install both so that I can showcase both SSRS installation methods and uses. At the very least I would also recommend installing the Management Tools and SQL Server Data Tools since these will be needed by any DBA or Developer that is going to use the server. If you are satisfied with your feature selection you can move to the next step by clicking on Next.

On the next screen a couple Installation Rules are checked. At this point you may need to update prior installations of Visual Studio or the .NET Framework if they exist. Once both of these Rules pass, proceed to the next screen.

Since we have now decided which Roles and Features we are going to install on the server, we now need to perform the necessary configuration for each in order to complete the installation. The first step is to setup the instance for the Database Engine. Since I do not have a previous instance on this server I can use the default of MSSQLSERVER. You may need to change this if you already have an existing instance. You can also modify the root directory for the Instance if you have multiple drives to choose from.

On the next screen the install process then checks to make sure the drive you selected has enough free space for all the roles and features that were selected. Click next to continue to the Server Configuration setup screen.

This Server Configuration screen is very important. This is where we determine which accounts will be used in order to run each of the related SQL services. Since our server is already setup as a domain controller and we have already created all the necessary domain users, this step is pretty simple (check out the first blog in this series if you have not performed this setup already). I use my SQL domain account to run the SQL Server Agent, SQL Server Database Engine, and SQL Server Integration Services. Additionally, I have a separate SSAS domain user for the Analysis Services service, and a separate SSRS domain user for the Reporting Services service. Click Next.

We are now given configuration screens for each of the individual features that we chose to install. On the first Database Engine Configuration screen we can choose the Authentication Mode for the server (Windows Authentication or Mixed Mode), the storage location of the database files, and some FILESTREAM settings. To keep things simple on my single server I selected the Windows Authenticated mode and then added myself and an additional Administrator account as the SQL Server Administrators. Once you have finalized the settings, click on Next.

We now need to configure Analysis Services. Since I already know that I am going to need three instances of SSAS on this server, I always choose to install the Multidimensional and Data Mining Mode. This is the standard version of Analysis Services that most people are probably used to. This allows for the creation of classic dimension / fact data warehouses. In a larger BI implementation, this instance of SSAS could be installed on a server separate from the Database Engine. This would allow the Database Engine server to run the SQL Server Engine and SSIS and remove the processing load that SSAS normally puts on a server. In addition to this, the future installations of SSAS in POWERPIVOT and Tabular Mode could be on their own separate servers as well. As part of you infrastructure planning you should take into account how much each of these services will be used in order to determine if they will need to sit on a separate server.

On this screen, I again leave the defaults for the Data Directories (these can always be changed later if necessary), and add myself and the Administrator account as admins for Analysis Services. Once again, click on Next.

Next is the Reporting Services configuration. Since we chose to install SSRS in both Native and SharePoint Integrated Mode earlier in the installation we will see both of them here. Integrated Mode only allows us to install without any automated configuration, however, Native Mode offers a few options. For this, I am also going to choose to install and not configure since I have no immediate use for Native mode as I will be leveraging integrated mode with SharePoint 2010. Once you have made your selections, click on Next.

Note: From my experience, I have always had a lot better luck choosing to install only for SSRS in Native Mode. SSRS has a pretty easy to use configuration tool once installed that makes it pretty easy to setup.

The installation process then goes through a few more minor screens, continue to get next until you are given an option to click on Install. I always advise to quickly scan through the list of items that are ready to install to make sure I didn't make any accidental selections. When you are ready, start the installation!

The installation will run for a bit, and then give you the final configuration screen. If everything went well you have successfully installed SQL Server 2012 RC0!