Beginning Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ... - S3 Tech Training

Chapter 18: Getting Integrated with Integration Services
Connection Managers
This is a bit of misnomer. This isn’t so much a list of connection managers as it is a list of connections. By
taking a look at the Description column, you’ll see many of the key properties for each connection your
package uses. Notice that in our example package, we have two connections, and if you look closely, you’ll
see how one relates to file information (for our connection to the flat file we’re using) and there is another
that specifically relates to SQL Server (the export source connection).
Execution Options
Do not underestimate the importance of this one. Not only does it allow you to specify how, at a high
level, you want things to happen if something goes wrong (if there’s an error), but it also allows you to
establish checkpoint tracking — making it easy to see when and where your package is getting to different
execution points. This can be critical in performance tuning and debugging.
Reporting
This one is all about letting you know what is happening. You can set up for feedback: exactly how much
feedback is based on which events you decide to track and the level of information you establish.
Logging
This one is fairly complex to set up and get going, but has a very high “coolness” factor in terms of giving
you a very flexible architecture of tracking even the most complex of packages.
Using this area, you can configure your package to write log information to a number of preconfigured
“providers” (essentially, well understood destinations for your log data). In addition to the preinstalled
providers such as text files and even a SQL Server table, you can even create your own custom providers
(not for the faint of heart). You can log at the package level, or you can get very detailed levels of granularity
and write to different locations for different tasks within your package.
Set Values
This establishes the starting value of any run-time properties your package uses. (There are none in our
simple package.)
Verification
Totally different packages can have the same file name (just be in a different spot in the file system, for
example). In addition, packages have the ability to retain different versions of themselves within the
same file or package store. The Verification dialog is all about filtering or verifying what package/version
you want to execute.
Command Line
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You can execute SSIS packages from the command line (handy when, for example, you’re trying to run
DTS packages out of a batch file). This option within the SSIS Package Execution Utility is about specifying
parameters you would have used if you had run the package from the command line.
The utility will establish most of this for you; the option here is just to allow you to perform something
of an override on the options used when you tell the utility to execute.