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February 2006 - Posts

• Connectionstrings.com - worth a bookmark

  For all you data integration pros out there, its worth bringing your attention toa site I've just come across - Connectionstrings.com . In short, it shows you how to build connection strings for many heterogeneous data sources when accessed using one Read More... Posted 28 February 2006 22:53 by jamie.thomson | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server 2005, SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server, SSIS

• SS: Calculate running totals

  SQL Server guru Adam Machanic posted a really interesting post on his blog yesterday in regard to calculating running totals in SQL Server. I'm sure Adam won't mind me saying he seemed a little embarrassed that his own logic had been outperformed by that Read More... Posted 28 February 2006 13:36 by jamie.thomson | 15 Comments Filed under: SQL Server

• SSIS: What's new in SP1

  I have been asking for quite a while now what new SSIS features we can expect in SQL Server 2005 SP1 but no-one from Microsoft seems particularly willing to tell me so far. So earlier this week I was glad to get sent a transcript of what I think was an Read More... Posted 26 February 2006 23:49 by jamie.thomson | 4 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• SSIS: Kristian is blogging (finally)

  A colleague of mine at Conchango, Kristian Wedberg, has started blogging on SSIS. Catch him here: http://blogs.conchango.com/kristianwedberg/default.aspx Kristian is a recent joiner to Conchango but prior to joining he had already produced some great Read More... Posted 23 February 2006 00:08 by jamie.thomson | (Comments Off) Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• SSIS: SELECT *... or select from a dropdown in an OLE DB Source component?

  The OLE DB Source component allows a number of methods for extracting data from an OLE DB Source. The two most obvious are: 1) Write a SQL statement to extract data 2) Select a required table from a drop down box. I have previously recommended that using Read More... Posted 21 February 2006 21:22 by jamie.thomson | 5 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS, ole db source adapter, Dataflow Task

• SSIS: Caching result sets for re-use in a ForEach loop

  Peter (sorry, don't know your surname) made a very good comment here: http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/2006/02/20/2895.aspx#2903 that data-flows in a ForEach loop carry out repeated SELECTs against a data source and it would be good to Read More... Posted 20 February 2006 17:08 by jamie.thomson | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS, raw files, ole db source adapter, Foreach Loop

• SSIS: Deploy to file system or SQL Server

  A decision that all SSIS architects need to make at some point is whether to deploy their packages to SQL Server or the File System. Kirk has a useful post here that discusses some of the pros and cons of both approaches: http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/knight_reign/archive/2005/05/05/13523.aspx Read More... Posted 20 February 2006 16:56 by jamie.thomson | 17 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• ClustrMaps - Cool new blog tool

  I'm a big fan of cool blog tools that publicise your blog and give you viewing stats etc...stuff like that. If you browse to my blog homepage you can see alot of them down the left hand side. The coolest yet though has to be one that Howard pointed me Read More... Posted 20 February 2006 14:21 by jamie.thomson | 1 Comments Filed under: Inane Waffle

• SSIS: New requests for Katmai

  Planning for Katmai (the next version of SQL Server) is well underway. Integration Services is still a version 1 product and as with all v1 products there are alot of improvements that can be made. I've listed a few suggestions here and here . In an attempt Read More... Posted 20 February 2006 12:59 by jamie.thomson | 6 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS, raw files, Checkpoints

• SSIS: How to load related tables

  It is a very common scenario to be able to load two tables in the same data-flow that have a foreign key relationship between them. The question of how to do this gets raised very often on the SSIS forum so I figured I'd try and address it here. Basically, Read More... Posted 17 February 2006 18:02 by jamie.thomson | 16 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server, SQL, SSIS, raw files, T-SQL, Dataflow Task

• SSIS: Calendar Transform Sample

  I'm currently sat, bored, in a hotel room and figured now would be a good time to address my chronic lack of blogging lately. In my defence I have been on holiday! Anyway, I've been reviewing the sample CalenderTransform component as provided by Microsoft. Read More... Posted 14 February 2006 02:46 by jamie.thomson | 4 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• SSIS: Deploying custom tasks and component

  Most of the stuff I put up here is in the interests of knowledge sharing but every so often I stick stuff up here just so that I'll be able to find it later. Mainly because its easier to search the blog than OWA. Here's such a case. If you want to automate Read More... Posted 08 February 2006 09:37 by jamie.thomson | 9 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS