Because containers are so integral to SSIS development, Chapter 6 is devoted to them. As you read
through the book, you’ll see many real-world examples that demonstrate how to use each of these
container types for typical ETL development tasks.
Data Flow
The core strength of SSIS is its capability to extract data into the server’s memory, transform it, and
write it out to an alternative destination. If the Control Flow is the brains of SSIS, then the Data
Flow would be its heart. The in-memory architecture is what helps SSIS scale and what makes SSIS
run faster than staging data and running stored procedures. Data sources are the conduit for these
data pipelines, and they are represented by connections that can be used by sources or destinations
once they’ve been defined. A data source uses connections that are OLE DB–compliant and ADO
.NET data sources such as SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, or even nontraditional data sources, such as
Analysis Services and Outlook. The data sources can be in scope to a single SSIS package or shared
across multiple packages in a project.
All the characteristics of the connection are defined in the Connection Manager. The Connection
Manager dialog options vary according to the type of connection you’re trying to configure.
Figure 1-4 shows you what a typical connection to SQL Server would look like.
Figure 1-4