SQL Server 2008 has grabbed the headlines but Microsoft has improved SSIS 2008, too.
Many new features of SQL Server 2008 have grabbed the headlines in the past year or so but quietly Microsoft has been enhancing SQL Server Integration Services also. Let’s take a look at what’s new in SSIS 2008. I will be expanding on each feature over the coming days. 1. Create Script tasks by using Microsoft Visual C# and Microsoft Visual Basic .NET. Code scripts now in C#.NET. With SQL Server 2005 we had to use VB.NET. The scripting engine has been re-written also. 2. Use ADO.NET for tasks as well as for source and destination components. This replaces the old DataReader source and supports ODBC for .NET. 3. Improve scalability with thread pooling and enhanced lookup transformations. The Data Flow engine handles multi-thread processing more intelligently. 4. Perform more functional and scalable data transfers with the improved SQL Server Import and Export Wizard. Scalability features to support large numbers of tables and customizable data type conversion. This makes the wizard much more usable. 5. New SSIS connectors for SAP Business Warehouse, Oracle and Teradata. 6. Take advantage of improvements to lookup performance in SQL Server 2008. Cached Lookups provide vastly faster processing. 7. Use the change data capture capabilities of SQL Server 2008 to optimize extract, transform, and load (ETL) operations by refreshing only data that has changed since the previous iteration. I’ll be exploring each of these features in the coming days. Watch this space! Cheers Brian
