Customer Reviews

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services: Problem, Design, Solution (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I usually don't do book reviews (at least publicly, anyway), but when I find a piece of work that I really get a lot out of, I don't mind sharing my experience. Such was the case with a book I finished recently. SQL Server 2008 Integration Services: Problem - Design - Solution is a concise guide to becoming a better ETL developer, written by four highly experienced industry experts. After reading this book, I can recommend it without hesitation!

From the first few pages, it's obvious that this book is different from many other SSIS books. Rather than trying to teach the reader how to use the software, this book instead focuses on common business problems and the methodology behind solving them. The authors assume some familiarity with SSIS, so you won't find a comprehensive how-to manual if you've never created a package before. That being said, the concepts presented here are not so complex that only highly seasoned ETL developers will understand them; to the contrary, the book illustrates a number of simple yet practical approaches, along with relevant examples, that audiences of various skill levels will get something out of it.

One of the most relevant topics covered was the concept of building an SSIS management framework, which was my favorite part of the book. Having recently moved from an environment with a relatively small number of packages to a consulting role where I might interact with hundreds of packages a month, I found that a solid ETL framework is a critical component of success. Chapter 2 of the Problem - Design - Solution book explains why, and illustrates how, one would build an SSIS management framework. For anyone that has struggled with a large number of packages or has wrestled with the shortcomings of the built-in SSIS logging tools, this chapter should prove useful as both a guide and a best practices reference. Further into the book, the authors cover other topics essential to data warehousing ETL, including data cleansing and fact and dimension table ETL. The authors go on to cover scripting in SSIS, one of my favorite topics, and do a good job of addressing scripting patterns in both the script task and script component. Finally, the book reviews ways to monitor and improve SSIS performance.

I consider a technical book to be successful if it contains the right mix of information so that I can immediately apply what I've learned to legitimate problems and situation. To that end, this book is a winner in my opinion; even though I have been developing ETL processes in SSIS for years, I was able to walk away with some practical techniques that I began using almost immediately. Experienced ETL developers, as well as those with only a little SSIS experience, will likely find this book very useful.

This book is a treasury for ETL developers / architects. It is very different from other ETL books in the way that it is written with a top-to-bottom approach instead of focusing on details of an ETL tool. Each chapter presents a problem that an ETL developer/architect will face during a real project. Then it provides design ideas and best practices for the problem and finally delivers a solution that can be implemented. The collection of design ideas, best practices and solutions provided is priceless. The solutions are ready for use or require minimal change and presented in enough details for someone who is familiar with SSIS. This is the book you want to have if you want to know how the SSIS experts would solve the ETL problems you are facing.

The only chapter that falls short in comparison with others in terms of the quality of the solution provided is chapter 9 on SSAS processing. The information is useful and written with the same format of other chapters but is not as comprehensive and of the same caliber. Considering that the focus of this book is on SSIS and not SSAS, this chapter is a good starting point for SSAS processing.

One highlight of this book is that many of the design patterns and frameworks presented in this book are independent of the version of SQL Server and will be useful in future versions. There are many references to other useful books when the reader needs to gain a deeper background knowledge. This is a great book to keep and come back to.

Overall this book is written well, easy to understand, and chapters flow smoothly together. Once I started reading this book, it was hard to put it down.

This book is really good for more advanced users. If you have developed SSIS packages in the past, and want to take the next step to make your systems better, then get this book. I am a developer for a big company and I rarely see advanced "real world" examples of SSIS solutions. I love the first chapter on SSIS logging. Download the code from the website, and it will create your logging tables and procs with just minor modifications to the scripts.

I initially put off buying this book for a week because it only had one review at the time (even though it was 5 stars).
This is an excellent Book!

Not a beginner's book. Target audience is medium to expert level professionals.

Simply put, should I write code or architect a process flow (package) with minimum code effort to solve business problem? If architecting is a choice then this book is for you.

The book covers package framework, design and development. It walks you through design patterns for developing effective SSIS packages. There is a nice section on package's performance with comparison to memory and disk I/O bottlenecks.

The book also covers physical infrastructure and deployment by focusing on package deployment on single/multiple computers and talk about processor capacity, RAM and physical disk size.

I echo the comments of the other reviewers. I bought this book, despite it only had one reviewer comment,largely because the authors. It turned out it was best decision I ever made. Unlike other SSIS books which teach you on how to use the software, this book instead focused on real world common issues faced by ETL developers. I specifically love the logging, and chapter 7 and 8 for dimension and fact. Regardles of your SSIS level, you will definitely learn something new from this. I highly recommend this book.

First off, let me say that this is a great book and I highly recommend reading it. I have been developing in SSIS on and off for the past 5 years and this book opened me up to new approaches on solving every day problems. Having the book broken down between Problem/Design/Solution is great because as a developer sometimes it is hard to envision when it would be the right time to use certain technologies over others.

Reading this book reminds me of why I tend to stay away from Wrox books. Reading a wrox programming book is a little bit like if I wrote to you like this:

Example A: Setting up a scripting For Each Loop. To do this just go _____ _______ _______ ______ ______ once you are done just take this and go ______ _______ ______.

Now you have it!

Have what?....

This book is meant primarily for people who ALREADY have experience with SSIS and is NOT MEANT FOR PEOPLE to learn SSIS. Most of my questions dealt with how does this work, how does that work? Wrox is notorious for jumping around and NOT being precise, then of course if you don't follow a hidden part they did not mention you are out of luck. With something as simple as a scripting task with a ForEach loop in Chapter 4 they don't tell you how the User Variable they set up works, then they mention you can script it but it fails with the code they gave because there are variables for the variable that need to be examined. Then you have to download their code to see what they left out in explanation.

This is not my first bad experience with a Wrox book, but after this one I know it's deterministic. They may be for very advanced users so I apologize but I don't see the need to leave out steps and this is common with Wrox books of all types. They assume things that are not listed and then you inevitably have to go to their site to download code because that is the only way to find out what they meant they did not list.

Very disappointed learning SSIS thus far and will go with a lower rated book as this one is basically for people that already know SSIS and don't need to learn it.

Not just a good SSIS book... in my opinion, the best on SSIS development from solution architecture perspective. This is an excellent reference for real-life datawarehouse project.

If you are looking for resources to ramp up your SSIS knowledge, there are two books you must read and in this order: Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services: Problem, Design, Solution. The first provides a deep dive into the tool and its capabilities, while the later shows you how to apply your knowledge to solve real-world challenges.

Written by some of the most recognized experts in Integration Services and Microsoft MVPs, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services: Problem, Design, Solution is full with pragmatic wisdom. Chapter 2 alone justifies the cost of buying this book as it provides a useful framework you can plug in to your SSIS solution to log its progress and execution. I've also found the data warehouse chapters very interesting and useful.

The book is valuable as both a reference guide and reusable code. Buy it, you will find reaching for it often!