Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Integration Services

Chapter 1. Moving Data with the Import and Export Wizard

The Import and Export Wizard is the easiest method to move data from sources like Excel, Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, and text files to nearly any destination. This wizard uses SSIS as a framework and can optionally save a package as its output prior to executing. The package it produces may not be the most elegant, but it can take a lot of the grunt work out of package development and provide the building blocks that are necessary for you to build the remainder of the package. Oftentimes as an SSIS developer, you'll want to relegate the grunt work and heavy lifting to the wizard and do the more complex coding yourself.

As with most SQL Server wizards, you have numerous ways to open the tool:

• To open the Import and Export Wizard, right-click the database you want to import data from or export data to SQL Server Management Studio and select Tasks

  

• You can also open the wizard by right-clicking SSIS Packages in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) and selecting SSIS Import and Export Wizard

• Another common way to open it is from the Start Menu under SQL Server 2008 by choosing Import and Export Data

• The last way to open the wizard is by typing dtswizard.exe at the command line or Run prompt

Regardless of whether you need to import or export the data, the first few screens in the wizard look very similar.

Once the wizard comes up, ...