October 23, 2010 at 8:49 am
Stefan Krzywicki (10/23/2010)
Grant Fritchey (10/23/2010)
The key to learning SSIS, at least for me, was to learn to trust the pipeline. As soon as you focus your efforts around keeping the data in the pipeline, avoid any & all tendencies towards scripting, it actually gets easy pretty quick.I've noticed an unfortunate tendency for people trying to explain how to perform different tasks in SSIS on other sites to jump right to scripting when they don't need to. For example, I needed to use variables to find files named in a particular pattern, like "abc" + currentdate + "_" + random numbers + ".xml" What I found on-line was mostly people showing how to do scripting in SSIS as opposed to DTS, but I didn't want to jump right into scripting, it seemed too basic not to be possible in SSIS.
Sure enough, I played around with variables and the For Each control and it works just fine without any scripting at all.
Exactly. The pipeline objects will do most of what you need without any scripting at all. It's just a matter of using the tools appropriately. I guess that's the hardest thing to learn, regardless of what the tool is.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
October 23, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Alvin Ramard (10/22/2010)
[rant]I'm getting sick and tired of having to deal with people trying to use SSIS without taking the time to learn how to use it first!!!!!!!!
[/rant]
I guess my plan of asking Alvin for answers to SSIS questions so I could learn it just went out the window.
October 24, 2010 at 6:49 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (10/23/2010)
Alvin Ramard (10/22/2010)
[rant]I'm getting sick and tired of having to deal with people trying to use SSIS without taking the time to learn how to use it first!!!!!!!!
[/rant]
I guess my plan of asking Alvin for answers to SSIS questions so I could learn it just went out the window.
Nah - you should still do it.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
October 24, 2010 at 7:02 am
GilaMonster (10/23/2010)
Personally I learnt SSIS with almost no reference to the docs (other than some of the SSIS expression 'language' and some error handling practices)I did, however, play around with it until I was comfortable and knew what the various tasks were for before I tried doing something complex. I suspect what's happening is that people are starting straight with the complex stuff.
'I'll write a package that imports 26 text files of different structures does complex stuff and then writes into 5 databases and I'll have it done tomorrow'
agreed Gail, but their boss might ask them to do just that
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October 24, 2010 at 11:17 am
george sibbald (10/24/2010)
GilaMonster (10/23/2010)
Personally I learnt SSIS with almost no reference to the docs (other than some of the SSIS expression 'language' and some error handling practices)I did, however, play around with it until I was comfortable and knew what the various tasks were for before I tried doing something complex. I suspect what's happening is that people are starting straight with the complex stuff.
'I'll write a package that imports 26 text files of different structures does complex stuff and then writes into 5 databases and I'll have it done tomorrow'
agreed Gail, but their boss might ask them to do just that
Frankly if that happens they should explain to the boss that they are not sufficiently familiar with SSIS and need one of
* training
* a book and some time
* time to play
Yes, I know, ideal world, understanding managers and all that.
Of course, if the person in question lied about their knowledge and is supposed to know SSIS, that's a whole 'nother matter.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 24, 2010 at 11:43 am
Does anyone know how to expand a VMWare virtual disk, and have it properly show up in an XP guest OS? If so, please help me out here.
Thanks!
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
October 24, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Wow... thanks for the insight on SSIS, folks. I've mostly resisted spending any decent amount of time on it because of what I've seen. Thanks to other people's posts, it seemed that you had to write some bloody damned script for just about anything complex that you wanted to do. I kept saying to myself, "Hell, it's a lot easier to do that in T-SQL... I don't need to mess things up by getting yet another layer of stuff involved."
I guess I'll give it another look... maybe even a fair one this time.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
October 24, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Jeff Moden (10/24/2010)
Wow... thanks for the insight on SSIS, folks. I've mostly resisted spending any decent amount of time on it because of what I've seen. Thanks to other people's posts, it seemed that you had to write some bloody damned script for just about anything complex that you wanted to do. I kept saying to myself, "Hell, it's a lot easier to do that in T-SQL... I don't need to mess things up by getting yet another layer of stuff involved."I guess I'll give it another look... maybe even a fair one this time.
I haven't had to do any scripting in SSIS yet. I've done ETL, created XML files, imported data form files without knowing specific file names, created backup plans and analyzed the backup plans the wizard creates. There's also some nice data analysis available with the Data Profiling Task.
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When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
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It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams
October 24, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I'm interested, why use SSIS for backup plans? That does seem an unnecessary extra layer to me. I presume you mean outside of the maintenance plans.
Whats the advantage over Sql agent jobs and/or stored procs or scripts?
On a similar point I am always surprised when I see people writing backup scripts in smo or vb or something, I have to ask myself why.
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October 24, 2010 at 12:43 pm
george sibbald (10/24/2010)
I'm interested, why use SSIS for backup plans? That does seem an unnecessary extra layer to me. I presume you mean outside of the maintenance plans.Whats the advantage over Sql agent jobs and/or stored procs or scripts?
On a similar point I am always surprised when I see people writing backup scripts in smo or vb or something, I have to ask myself why.
I'd never done backup plans before, so I wanted to see what SQL Server did when you created one with the wizard. And no, I mean as the regular maintenance backups. It creates the plan and then is scheduled with the SQL Agent jobs. Once I created the plans with the wizard, I opened them in Visual Studio and saw how it was done. That let me fine tune everything and understand what was going on with the process.
As I've never done them before, I don't know why you'd use stored procs or scripts. SSIS does a great job with it.
--------------------------------------
When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
--------------------------------------
It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams
October 24, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Jeff Moden (10/24/2010)
Wow... thanks for the insight on SSIS, folks. I've mostly resisted spending any decent amount of time on it because of what I've seen. Thanks to other people's posts, it seemed that you had to write some bloody damned script for just about anything complex that you wanted to do.
I've been writing some reasonably complex SSIS recently and I've only once used a script, and afterwards it turned out to not even be necessary (was in my error handling)
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 24, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Stefan Krzywicki (10/24/2010)
george sibbald (10/24/2010)
I'm interested, why use SSIS for backup plans? That does seem an unnecessary extra layer to me. I presume you mean outside of the maintenance plans.Whats the advantage over Sql agent jobs and/or stored procs or scripts?
On a similar point I am always surprised when I see people writing backup scripts in smo or vb or something, I have to ask myself why.
I'd never done backup plans before, so I wanted to see what SQL Server did when you created one with the wizard. And no, I mean as the regular maintenance backups. It creates the plan and then is scheduled with the SQL Agent jobs. Once I created the plans with the wizard, I opened them in Visual Studio and saw how it was done. That let me fine tune everything and understand what was going on with the process.
As I've never done them before, I don't know why you'd use stored procs or scripts. SSIS does a great job with it.
I guess it depends on your history then. Having done backup plans I already have procs and scripts for the purpose so don't need to use SSIS to call procs or scripts to do backups, which I have seen people do.
Having said that I use maintenance plan backups a lot, mainly for their simplicity of setup and their in-built file cleanup processes.
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October 24, 2010 at 1:39 pm
george sibbald (10/24/2010)
Stefan Krzywicki (10/24/2010)
george sibbald (10/24/2010)
I'm interested, why use SSIS for backup plans? That does seem an unnecessary extra layer to me. I presume you mean outside of the maintenance plans.Whats the advantage over Sql agent jobs and/or stored procs or scripts?
On a similar point I am always surprised when I see people writing backup scripts in smo or vb or something, I have to ask myself why.
I'd never done backup plans before, so I wanted to see what SQL Server did when you created one with the wizard. And no, I mean as the regular maintenance backups. It creates the plan and then is scheduled with the SQL Agent jobs. Once I created the plans with the wizard, I opened them in Visual Studio and saw how it was done. That let me fine tune everything and understand what was going on with the process.
As I've never done them before, I don't know why you'd use stored procs or scripts. SSIS does a great job with it.
I guess it depends on your history then. Having done backup plans I already have procs and scripts for the purpose so don't need to use SSIS to call procs or scripts to do backups, which I have seen people do.
Having said that I use maintenance plan backups a lot, mainly for their simplicity of setup and their in-built file cleanup processes.
Having said that
SSIS doesn't call any scripts or procs to do backups. It has a task for that.
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When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
--------------------------------------
It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams
October 25, 2010 at 5:50 am
george sibbald (10/24/2010)
I'm interested, why use SSIS for backup plans? That does seem an unnecessary extra layer to me. I presume you mean outside of the maintenance plans.Whats the advantage over Sql agent jobs and/or stored procs or scripts?
On a similar point I am always surprised when I see people writing backup scripts in smo or vb or something, I have to ask myself why.
I personally wouldn't use it for backup plans. But, if you do use maintenance plans in 2008, you're using SSIS whether you want to or not. Might as well know what's going on, how they work, and how you can take better control of them.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
October 25, 2010 at 5:53 am
Grant Fritchey (10/25/2010)
george sibbald (10/24/2010)
I'm interested, why use SSIS for backup plans? That does seem an unnecessary extra layer to me. I presume you mean outside of the maintenance plans.I personally wouldn't use it for backup plans. But, if you do use maintenance plans in 2008, you're using SSIS whether you want to or not.
Same with 2k5. If you're creating a maintenance plan, it's an SSIS package. No matter if it's backups or anything else.
Just an FYI: If you're using Litespeed for backups (not sure about other third party tools), it also creates an SSIS package, although it's one you can't read using BIDS.
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