I’m really excited to get to present at another SQL Saturday event -- this time in Boston! I really enjoyed the events in Redmond , and I’m looking forward to presenting two sessions this time around. In the morning I’ll be co-presenting SSIS – The New...

Channel 9 has posted a series of videos that talk about what’s coming up in SQL Server Denali. These short (< 10 minutes each) videos are done by members of the engineering team, and are meant to give customers a peek into the goals and visions on...

The Data Platform Evangelism team has published the third unit in the SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence Training Course (a.k.a SQLInsights) on MSDN. The SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence Training Course (SQLInsights) will help you learn...

Problem: I want all errors in my package to be reported to the Windows Event Log, and all other events to be logged to SQL Server. Logging all messages to multiple locations is pretty simple. On the Configure SSIS Logs dialog (SSIS –> Logging …), you...

There is a Session Preference survey up on the Tech Ed North America 2011 site . This is a great way to provide input to the session selection committee. If you plan on attending Tech Ed NA, be sure to fill it out before the survey closes (February 17th...

Jamie Thomson recently suggested that you should run your packages using DTEXEC when doing performance testing, as it (typically) performs much better then when the same package is run in BIDS. If you haven’t already read it, go do that now. It has a...

There are a number of small changes to Integration Services in SQL Server Denali that might not be immediately apparent. One of these is the new LEFT function in the SSIS Expression language .   This new function provides a simpler way to get the...

We’ll soon be taking down the old connectivity wiki, and have moved all of the content to the new Technet Wiki Pages . You can find a full list of SSIS wiki pages here , or you can click through to the connectivity related pages linked below: SSIS 64...

I’ve just updated the Codeplex version of EzAPI – an alternative SSIS package creation API. If you missed the previous release , I definitely recommend checking it out. Updates include : Support for additional containers, tasks and components Bug fixes...

Looking for more information on SSIS functionality in SQL Server Denali? Head over to the SQL Server Denali Resource Center . There are plenty of articles and links to community blog posts, as well as 12 videos about the new functionality in SSIS. Migration...

Steve Swartz’s SSIS Tips & Tricks session from TechEd Europe 2010 is available online . Be sure to check it out! SSIS 2008: Tips and Tricks Are you starting up a new project with SQL Server Integration Services? Do you want to speed up an existing...

Thanks to everyone who attended my session at SQL PASS yesterday. The recording of the session isn’t available yet, but thankfully, Steve Swartz, the Group Program Manager for the SSIS team, presented the same content about SQL Server Denali at TechEd...

Will you be attending PASS this year? I’ll definitely be there, along with most of the SSIS team! I’ll be presenting a talk about the next version of SSIS , and representing SSIS in the BI Power Hour . Be sure to swing by the product pavilion and Ask...

We’ve been hard at work on the next version of SQL Server, and it’s (almost) time to start sharing some of exciting new functionality we’ve introduced to SSIS. Over the new few months (starting about the time the first public CTP drops), I expect you...

A new technical note about splitting up transforms to increase performance has been posted on the SQLCAT site . It’s something you want to consider when you’re using synchronous transforms (like Derived Column, or Data Convert) to perform actions on a...

As a follow-up to my previous post about SCD processing in SSIS , I thought I’d go deeper into using the built-in Slowly Changing Dimension Wizard . While there are definitely more efficient ways to do SCD processing in SSIS, there are some optimizations...

This question recently came up on an internal SSIS mailing list: We’re converting date strings to date columns using the Derived Column transform. We’ve noticed some weird conversion behavior with older dates, like ‘0001-01-01’. It seems that year values...

A new article on how to programmatically generate reports in large volumes using SSIS and SSRS has been published in the MSDN Library. It provides an interesting example of how to parameterize your reports, and drive the report generation using an SSIS...

We’ve been hard at work on the next version of the product for a while now. I should be able to talk more about our plans sometime in the fall, but until then I can say that configuration and deployment has been one of our focus areas. I’ve recently been...

Brian Knight's Performance Tuning SSIS talk from Tech Ed 2010 has been posted online . Performance Tuning Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services In this demo-rich presentation, learn some of the common and not so common ways to tune SQL Server...

The Performance Design Patterns talk I did at Tech Ed 2010 has been posted online . This is pretty much the same talk I gave at SQL Saturday #43 , so if you had attended and were looking for the slides, you can find them on the MS TechEd site. Enjoy...

Another talk at the MS BI Conference that I really found useful was Jeff Bernhardt’s talk about the different data integration technologies at Microsoft . Data Integration at Microsoft: Technologies and Solution Patterns There are many reasons to contemplate...

One of the sessions I did at the MS BI Conference last week is now available online at msteched.com . Beyond Scripting: Developing Reusable Extensions for Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services Have you written scripts for your ETL process that you...

While developing some custom transforms for my talks at the BI Conference next week , I hit a problem where I was getting an a failed HRESULT (COM Exception) in my PreExecute () method on a call to BufferManager.FindColumnByLineageID (). HRESULT 0xC020402D...

I’m happy to be presenting at SQL Saturday on June 12th. I’ll be presenting a modified version of the SSIS Performance Design Patterns I’ll be giving at the MS BI Conference in New Orleans next week. There seems to be a whole SSIS track at SQL Saturday...