Customer Reviews

Professional SQL Server 2000 DTS (Data Transformation Service)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book was a disappointment. Mostly it shows how to create packages using the Enterprise Mgr interface. I don't need a book to do that. Right now I am coding a VB app using DTS, and this book was definitely not enough. This is a beginner book, introductory in nature. There is an Object reference, but I can see that in the Object Browser. The examples are simplistic and not real-world. The examples on the SQL Server 2000 Resource Kit are better. I am moving large amounts of data data and have to deal with permissions, constraints, dependency tables -- none of this is covered. You can manipulate the object model thousands of ways; without any guidance on these advanced topics (not covered by MSDN) you are adrift... and your packages will fail every time.
If you are a programmer, don't bother with this one.

You'd think an 880-page tome from Wrox on something as specialised as DTS would pretty much have you covered anytime you need a reliable DTS reference to get you through your Data Transformation tasks. I have found myself looking to this book for guidance on many occasions during development, only to be consistently disappointed. For a start, the Index is downright useless, since I was never able to find words I would expected to, such as delimiter, lineage, disconnected edit, parameterised query, identity insert, but it has an entry for DNS?? (which, btw refers to a 3-line explanation of URLs when using Internet Explorer!) The book is so large mainly because every other page is a GUI snapshot, most of which are unnecessary. I don't need a whole page dedicated to the "Syntax check was successful" message box.

I give it 3 stars because they do a good job of at least mentioning probably every concept that relates to DTS, but coverage is mostly shallow and out of focus. There does seem to be heavy emphasis on data warehousing, which I haven't used so far, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt regarding coverage there. Overall I still think I might find something good when I need a reference but so far I have mostly found SQL Books Online equally, or sometimes more useful.

My company just started using DTS and I needed to learn the technology rapidly. While many Wrox books are 1000+ pages, this book is actually 683. The rest of the pages are devoted to appendixes on the object models.

Another strength of this book is the construction of the chapters. After the introductory 2 chapters, the rest can be read in any order or skipped. This book covered many diverse topics, including data warehouse loading, the DTS object model, VBScript, and even using VB to build new custom tasks.

The book is primarily focused on DBAs. Therefore, there is more coverage of VBScript and COM object development than a programmer would require. However, given the strong chapter cohesiveness, it is easy to skip this material without missing important information.

This is not a very good book on DTS, but, unfortunately, it was the best that I could find. If anyone out there knows of a better book, please let the rest of us know.

The book is not logically organized - probably the result of having several authors. And, I have to agree with the reviewer that stated the index is incomplete. I have on many occasions gone to the index only to find that I have to leaf through the book looking for an item that I saw before but can't remember its exact location. The book is only slightly more helpful that SQL Server's Books Online, but that's only because it's in hard copy. The most useful part of the book to me has been Appendix C, which contains Visual Basic Functions and Keywords.

I wouldn't go so far as to recommend not buying this book, but you should lower your expectations a bit. Frankly, WROX usually does better than this. I hope they are very busily revising this book as I write this review.

Good luck learning DTS, it's not as easy as it might seem at first glance.

We've purchased three of these after attending a DTS class for our developers and DBAs. It's a little rudamentary in some of the programming concepts but we bought it more for the DTS functionality end. I loved the case study and the error-handling section was extremely helpful.

The book introduces you well to DTS and then proceeds quickly into much more advanced topics. If you don't know programming, the VBScript chapter may be useful. There's a handy reference in the back also to the DTS object model.

There are very few resources for DTS, so I bought this one to help me understand the programming models involved. I'm not thrilled with it, but it does explain the models very quickly and succinctly.

When this book first came out, I grabbed it the first time I saw it on the shelf. We had been using DTS pretty heavily where I worked, but it was all basic stuff. I wanted to dig a little deeper than the basic stuff we were doing and I found this book to be great. I know the reviews on this one are all over the map. However, I found this book to be very useful. If you're doing anything with DTS, you'll want to look through this one.

Every time you think it's about to get good with this book, they cut you off and go on to some other topic. I found sqldts.com far more complete and helpful than this book. Good luck finding anything in the index.

This book merely skims the surface of DTS. Enough details of DTS are not supplied. For instance there are a number of annoyances with DTS that must be avoided using workaround that are mentioned nowhere in this book. Also more complicated subjects of DTS are merely skimmed through. This book is not good for beginner nor for professionals.

I have been working on a project involving DTS and needed a firm grash of it. the book far from scaring me with all the technicalities and programming depth at the begining gradually introduced me to DTS and step by step with example showed me how to harness the power of DTS including the programming side it is the perfect book to introduce you to the subject and for self learner like me it succeed at opening your mind and pointing you to the right direction

I 'll recommend it