Building Better SSIS Packages

The full-day course Building Better SSIS Packages is by far my most popular day-long class. I have delivered this class to hundreds of attendees, and I have gotten great feedback on it. This course is designed for the data professional with at least some exposure to SQL Server Integration Services. This course is available as a private class for businesses and teams needing to train several data professionals at once.

Building Better SSIS Packages (full-day course)

Building packages in SQL Server Integration Services is easy. Building good packages takes a bit more effort.

SQL Server Integration Services is deceptively easy to use. With a few hours of instruction or self-study, most data professionals can throw together an SSIS package. However, creating a process that simply runs successfully isn’t the endgame; enterprise-class ETL demands a higher standard. Specifically, well-designed packages will be:

Reliable
Resilient
Reusable
Maintainable
Well performing

There’s nothing magical about building rock-solid SSIS packages, but it does take some discipline, experience, and a library of best practices. That is exactly the aim of this course: to demonstrate a set of proven practices that help frame the development of enterprise-ready SSIS packages.

In this full-day presentation, we will walk through each of these five facets of well-built packages, discussing and then demonstrating ways of applying these practices to design better SSIS packages. Among the topics for the day:

Checking for problems even when the package executes successfully
Building effective tests for your packages
Error handling and prevention
Being kind to your fellow developers by building clear and easy-to-maintain packages
Leave a trail of evidence: package logging done properly
Avoiding performance bottlenecks: tips for making packages run faster
Using the right tool for the job by integrating non-SSIS tools when appropriate

This course is designed for the beginner- to intermediate-level SSIS developer.