some rudimentary programming skills. Not many programming skills will be needed or assumed,
but it will help with your advancement. No skills in the prior release of SSIS are required, but we do
reference it throughout the book when we call attention to feature enhancements.
What This Book Covers
Whether you’re new to SSIS or an experienced SSIS developer, there’s something for you in
this book. This book takes you from the architecture and basics of SSIS all the way through to
developing hard-core SSIS solutions to solve many of the industry’s common business scenarios. The
book is tutorial based, meaning that it teaches you through simple examples.
By the time you complete this book, you’ll know how to load and synchronize database systems
using SSIS by using some of the new SQL Server 2014 features. You’ll also know how to load data
warehouses, which is a very hot and specialized skill. Even in warehousing, you’ll find features
in the new 2014 release that you’ll wonder how you lived without like the Data Quality Services
integration and CDC integration!
How This Book Is Structured
After discussing the architecture of SSIS, we’ll start with the basics by introducing the fundamental
concepts of SSIS: the Data Flow and Control Flow. We’ll then build through the various other
features, including the warehousing and scripting, and proceed to advanced topics like programming
and extending the engine. SSIS is a very feature-rich product, and it took a lot to cover the product:
Chapter 1, “Welcome to SQL Server Integration Services,” introduces the concepts that
we’re going to discuss throughout the remainder of this book. We talk about the SSIS architecture
and give a brief overview of what you can do with SSIS.
Chapter 2, “The SSIS Tools,” shows you how to quickly learn how to import and export
data by using the Import and Export Wizard and then takes you on a tour of the SQL
Server Data Tools (SSDT).
Chapter 3, “SSIS Tasks,” goes into each of the tasks that are available to you in SSIS.
These tasks are the building blocks for your SSIS workflow and are much like LEGO block
programming.
Chapter 4, “The Data Flow,” dives into the Data Flow components in SSIS. These components
are where typical ETL developers will spend 75 percent of their time when loading a
database.
Chapter 5, “Using Variables, Parameters, and Expressions,” instructs you how to use the
obscure expression language in SSIS by showing you many example use cases and how to
solve them through the language. We also cover in the cha