In SQL Server Integration Services, the lookup component is one of the most frequently used tools for data validation and completion. The lookup component is provided as a means to virtually join one set of data to another to validate and/or retrieve missing values. Properly configured, it is reliable and reasonably fast. To get the most out of this component,…
SQL Server Integration Services does a great job of retrieving and processing data on the fly, directly in the data flow pipeline. However, there are circumstances that occasionally require the persistence of result sets in SSIS for use during package execution. For these such cases, one option is to use SSIS raw files. In this SSIS Basics post, I will…
In the control flow for SQL Server Integration Services, the “lines” we commonly use to connect tasks to each other are actually smart controls. These SSIS precedence constraints allow the ETL developer to customize the program flow from one task to another. The most common use of precedence constraints is to simply connect two tasks with the default constraint, which…
One of the most common questions I am asked about ETL configuration is how much memory SSIS requires. When configuring a new instance of SQL Server running SSIS, or adding SSIS to an existing SQL Server installation, it is important to understand how SSIS uses memory, and what factors in your package design will impact the amount of memory used…
Yesterday I wrote about the little-known but still useful multiple flat file connection manager. In this post, I will briefly show a more commonly used alternative approach for processing multiple data files: the foreach loop container. The SSIS foreach loop container The foreach loop container is used to iterate through a discrete list of items at runtime. That list could…
When building an ETL pipeline to import data from a text file, it’s very common to have the incoming data spread across multiple files. For example, if you are ingesting files generated on a periodic basis (per day, per hour, etc.), you could have dozens or hundreds of files with identical structure. This is an ideal setup for building a…
When extracting data from a flat file, it is handy to have the name of the file from which the data was retrieved. Whether you capture this information for auditing purposes, or you include it directly in the output table, the odds are good that you’ll want to have that filename for use later in the process. You could do…
Temp tables are very handy when you have the need to store and manipulate an interim result set during ETL or other data processing operations. However, if you use SQL Server Integration Services as your ETL tool, you may find some challenges when trying to work with temp tables in SSIS packages, especially in the SSIS data flow. In this…
I am delighted to announce that I’ll be delivering my full-day course, Building Better SSIS Packages, at the SQLBits conference in London on Thursday, February 22nd. This course is aimed at data professionals with experience in SQL Server and a general understanding of SQL Server Integration Services concepts. This will be my second time to present at SQLBits, and my…
One of the more common questions I find in SQL Server SSIS forums is how to split apart a single text file into multiple outputs. Files extracted from foreign sources often arrive in nonstandard formats, and are too often unchangeable at the source and must be parsed during the import process. For unconventional custom transformations such as this, using the…