Learning Objectives

• How to use BIDS to create well-designed packages.
• About Control Flows, how to build them using many of the built-in tasks, including the various containers.
• How to use the Data Flow task to perform primary ETL operations.
• About variable and configurations to make your packages dynamic and resilient to changes in environments.
• About the features in BIDS and Integration Services that help you troubleshoot a package.
• How to deploy and manage packages effectively.
• How to write script so that you can go beyond the built-in tasks, data sources and destinations, and transformations, as well as building and using custom components.
• Best practices that will make it easier to develop and maintain a package over its entire life cycle.
• About using Integration Services for tasks other than traditional ETL operations.

Prerequisites

This course assumes no prior knowledge of SQL Server Integration Services. This course does assume prior knowledge of SQL Server 2008 and the use of SQL Server Management Studio for development and administrative tasks. You should be able to create CRUD (create, retrieve, update, and delete) queries using T-SQL, understand basic relational databases design, run script files and diagnose problems that occur, and have experience building applications that access data stored in SQL Server. You must also know how to connect to an instance of SQL Server 2008 using the various connection dialog boxes in Management Studio and development tools.

Other tools used in this course include Notepad, Microsoft Excel, and basic features of Windows.

A Guided Tour of Integration Services

• Understanding Integration Services
• Exploring and Executing an Integration Services Package in BIDS
• Exploring and Executing a Package Outside of BIDS

Control Flow

• Overview of Control Flow in Integration Services
• Working with Workflow Tasks
• Precedence Constraints

Data Flows

• The Data Flow Task
• Data Viewers
• Data Flow Transformations

Variables and Configurations

• Understanding Variables
• Using Variables in Control Flow
• Using Variables in Data Flow
• Configurations
• Using Variables and Configurations between Packages

Advanced Control Flow

• Advanced Control Flow Overview
• Using Containers
• Transactions Support in Integration Services

Error Handling and Logging

• When Things Go Wrong
• Checkpoints
• Handling Errors and Debugging
• Packaging Logging
• Event Handling

Advanced Data Flow

• Synchronous and Asynchronous Transformations
• Using Advanced Transformations
• Handling Slowly Changing Dimensions

Package Deployment

• Deploying Packages
• Create a Package Deployment Utility
• Installing a Package
• Redeploying Updated Packages

Package Management

• Overview of Package Management
• Managing Integration Services Packages
• Executing Packages
• Integration Services Security

Scripting and Custom Components

• Extending Integration Services Capabilities through Code
• Scripting in Control Flows with the Script Task
• Scripting in Data Flows with the Script Component
• Custom Integration Services Components

Best Practices

• Best Practices for Using Integration Services
• Best Practices for Package Development and Design
• Data Flow Best Practices
• Deployment and Management Best Practices

Going Beyond ETL

• Using Integration Services Beyond ETL
• Migrating and Maintaining SQL Servers with Integration Services
• Working with Analysis Services
• Working with Windows Management Instrumentation