Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® Analysis Services 2008 with MDX

19.4. Summary

Integration Services provides the mechanism for automated tasks ranging from data cleansing, data split, to data merging. In this chapter you learned that a package must have a control flow and may also have data flows; the control flow is represented by tasks and containers, which are connected by precedence constraints. These precedence constraints determine the fate of a control flow after each step is completed. The precedence constraint can be an expression that leads to a success or failure condition, or the constraint can be set to "completion" without further consideration for continued control flow. Finally, you learned how to import packages into Integration Services using SSMS and create scheduled jobs of packages using SQL Server Agent.

In the previous chapter summary, you were promised a wonderful synergy between Integration Services and Analysis Services and from the section on "Creating Integration Services Packages for Analysis Services Operations" to "Automating Execution of SSIS Packages," you got it! The fun is not over, because in the next chapter, you learn about yet another profound and cool form of product synergy. Only this time it is about integrating Business Intelligence with Reporting Services. There is some amazing stuff in store, like designing static and ad-hoc reports on top of UDM. Don't miss it!