Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services [Paperback]

Brian Knight (Author), Devin Knight (Author), Mike Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 20, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0470496924 | ISBN-13: 978-0470496923 | Edition: 1

A unique book-and-video package for learning Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services

If you need a practical, hands-on introduction to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (SSIS), this book and video package from foremost SSIS authority Brian Knight gets you thoroughly up to speed. Each lesson in the book includes three major components: a thorough description of how each SSIS feature or process works; a tutorial that walks you through the process or technique; and a video lesson that demonstrates it.

If you take full advantage of this comprehensive package, you will gain enough experience to tackle your first SSIS project with confidence.

• SQL Server Integration Services 2008 (SSIS) builds on the revolutionary database product suite first introduced by Microsoft in 2005 and is a powerful tool for performing extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) operations essential to data warehousing
• If you're just learning SSIS, the step-by-step tutorials in this book and DVD training package will ready you to tackle your own first project
• Every lesson in the book is supplemented by instructional video on the DVD

Note:As a part of this title, video lessons are included on DVD. For the e-book versions, video lessons can be accessed at wrox.com using a link provided in the interior of the e-book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Don't let SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) intimidate you. Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services is a unique lesson-based book that walks you through the essential parts of SSIS without all of the fluff. Each lesson is streamlined to teach a specific component of SSIS, helping you to focus on just what you need in order to succeed in your job. If you learn better by getting your hands on the product, this book provides you with a step-by-step lab for each lesson with a video to accompany it.

The authors guide you from the ground-up and make no assumption of previous knowledge of SSIS. The 49 featured lessons help you develop a strong foundation for this highly marketable skill. Additionally, you'll get useful tools like cheat sheets on the SSIS expression language and you'll learn when to use each task.

Each lesson has three major components: a description of how to use the given SSIS feature, a tutorial, and an instructor-led video. No matter your learning style, you'll glean new information from each lesson with this unique style of training. It's like having a one-on-one instructor in your office showing you SSIS. Learning SSIS has never been so simple.

What you will learn from this book and DVD

• How to install and configure SSIS

• How to create and edit tasks in the Control Flow

• Methods for designing the core sources, transforms, and destinations of Data Flows

• How to develop Control Flows with For Loop and Foreach Loop Containers

• How to make your package dynamic with variables and expressions

• Methods for updating your package remotely with configuration files and tables

• Techniques for transferring information from parent to child packages

• Techniques for loading a data warehouse using SSIS

• Tips for troubleshooting common SSIS challenges

Who this book is for

This book is for SQL Server database administrators and developers who are new to SSIS.

Wrox guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think. Written by programmers for programmers, they provide a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

About the Author

Brian Knight, SQL Server MVP, MCITP, MCSE, MCDBA, is the owner and founder of Pragmatic Works. He is also the co-founder of SQLServerCentral.com and JumpstartTV.com. He runs the local SQL Server users group in Jacksonville (JSSUG). Brian is a contributing columnist at several technical magazines and does regular webcasts at Jumpstart TV. He is the author of ten SQL Server books. Brian has spoken at conferences like PASS, SQL Connections, and TechEd and many Code Camps. His blog can be found at http://www.pragmaticworks.com. Brian watches his 401k wither away in Jacksonville, Florida.

Devin Knight is a BI consultant at Pragmatic Works. Previously, he has tech edited the book Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). Devin has spoken at past conferences like PASS and at several SQL Saturday events. He is a contributing member to the Business Intelligence Special Interest Group (SIG) for PASS as a leader in the SSIS Focus Group. Making his home in Jacksonville, Florida, Devin is a participating member of the local users’ group (JSSUG). Visit his blog at http://pragmaticworks.com/community/blogs/.

Mike Davis (Jacksonville, Florida) is an author, developer, consultant, and trainer with Pragmatic Works. He has expertise in many areas of Business Intelligence including Integration Services, Reporting Services, Analysis Services, Database Administration, and .NET Software Development. Mike has created enterprise level BI and software solutions for numerous corporations. As a trainer he travels the world teaching classes on SQL Server and BI. He also participates as a speaker at events like SQL Saturdays, SQL Server launches, SQL server user groups, and SQL PASS. In his spare time Mike plays guitar and darts. He is a member of the North Florida Dart League.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (July 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470496924
• ISBN-13: 978-0470496923
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #137,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Development > SQL Server
  • #63 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > Data Warehousing
  • #85 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > SQL

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Productivity in a Book July 29, 2009

By Brian K. Seitz

Format:Paperback

Most of the Wrox collection of books I have I would rate fairly high on the star scale. Knight's 24-hour trainer is not different in that assessment. The book purports itself as a beginner to productive user of SQL Server 2009 Integration Services in 24 hours.

That's a tall order given the nature and scope of Integration Servers. I have worked with various members of the SQL Dev team from time to time and they confide, that this seems to be the one area that developers lag in their knowledge. Which is a shame, because getting the data into and out of a database is one of the most critical tasks.

I approached reading the book with an open mind as I was, like others, limited in my knowledge and use of Integration Services. The book is well laid out starting out with discussing how Integration Services is structured. Following are a series of small focused lessons and exercises to take one through the key features and utilities within SSIS. This book will not make you the ultimate guru on SSIS, however it will as advertised:

1) Give you a solid understand of how SSIS is structured and operates
2) Provides you enough training to meet the 80/20 rule head-on making you productive while your reading the text.

I would strongly recommend the book to anyone that works with SQL Server

Knight's 24-Hour Trainer: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services (Knights 24 Hour Trainer)

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Strengths outweigh flaws January 14, 2010

By Steve Pagano

Format:Paperback

I picked up this book when I needed a crash course in SSIS for a work project. While it does have some significant flaws, the book has many strong points, and in the balance I believe the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. I can't recall ever having read a book that is simultaneously so good overall yet so plagued with annoyances.

Strengths first:
* The book does a great job in the arrangement of its subjects. You can start knowing nothing about the subject, and in very little time you come out with a solid base of understanding. Also, the pacing is terrific: the stuff you'll do the most hands-on, day-to-day work with come first, with the lesser-used stuff coming later. Skimming is easy and worry-free: the book doesn't hide important bits of info within a morass of excess words, or in the middle of a handful of topics of little or no use/interest to the reader. Wrox's propensity for wordiness is thankfully absent here.
* The book can be completed in 24 hours of work. A far cry from the "Learn X in 24 Hours" books that were once so popular!
* Each lesson is just long enough, and the hands-on lessons are pertinent, focused, and otherwise implemented extremely well.
* The video lessons are reasonably helpful, once you get past their weankesses.

Now, the weaknesses:
* The book has many errata, few of which are noted on the book's website. And as of this writing, you can't submit errata on Wrox's website unless you are registered with Wrox... and the website's registration page is broken. And you can't submit a problem report about the registration page because you need to be registered in order to submit the problem report. Thankfully, most of the errata are easily overcome by most readers, and no error was so signifcant as to render the lesson unusable.
* The videos have some significant production issues. First, the resolution on the video is so poor that in many cases it's impossible to read any of the text shown in screen shots, even if you enlarge the video player. Second, the audio leaves much to be desired. The narrator of the first 25 or so lessons apparently had a head cold when he did the recording; his enunciation is awful and a few of his mispronunciations (such as saying "arrigit" for "aggregate") are jarring. The second narrator is better in that regard, but he speaks so quietly that you have to really jack up the volume of the playback -- at which point you can hear all the traffic that was passing by the office where the recording was done. These problems, combined with the clunky UI and ugly, dated graphics, make the DVD seem amateurish.

So, would I recommend this book? Yes, very much so. The text and the approach of the book are so good that they overcome the problems posed by the DVD, and in the end, the book delivers admirably on its promise.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Introduction. The videos add a lot! September 29, 2009

By Clay Mckinney

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I hadn't heard of SSIS until the week before I bought this book. This book gave me a broad overview with enough depth to get started. Now I'm using the software for actual work. Very worthwhile.

Couple of notes:
1) Not for SQL Server Express
2) Are you old-school? SSIS is the new Data Transformation Services
3) The book is for MS SQL 2008. I'm using 2005, and could follow along easily. Minor differences.

On another note, all computer books should have video. I can't tell you how helpful that was. They didn't spend a lot of time or money making the video. They just had something running that recorded their screen actions and voice, and let them zoom in. Then they basically just showed on screen what they were talking about in the book. It looks like they spent five or ten minutes per chapter. They make it look so easy, that from now on I'm going to consider anyone who doesn't include a video in a computer book to be lazy. In other words, they raised the bar. Authors, this is the new standard. It doesn't have to be expensive to be effective. Not perfect, just useful.