Professional SQL Server™ 2005 Integration Services

Foreword

It was back in 2001 when I first started to manage the then data transformation services team. At that time, I'd just moved over from working on the Analysis Services team. I did not have much of a background in DTS but was a great fan of the product and was willing to learn and eager to get started. The question was, What is the best way to get up to speed with the product in a short amount of time?

As I asked around, almost all my new teammates recommended "the red book," which of course was Brian Knight and Mark Chaffin's Professional DTS book. And right they were; this book is comprehensive, detailed, and easy to follow with clear examples. I think that it has been invaluable to anyone who wanted to get started with DTS.

Since then a few years have passed, and DTS has evolved into SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). The philosophical foundations and the customer-centric focus of both these products are the same; their origins undeniably are the same. But SSIS is a totally different product that plays in a very different space than DTS. Indeed DTS is a very popular functionality of SQL Server. It is used by almost everyone who has a need to move data or tables in any from. In fact, according to some surveys, more than 70 percent of all SQL Server users use DTS. Given the popularity of DTS, one might ask why we chose to pretty much rewrite this product and build SSIS.

The answer lies in what most defines the SSIS/DTS team: listening to our customers. We had been ...