The Rational Guide to Extending SSIS 2005 with Script (Rational Guides) (Paperback)

by Donald Farmer (Author)
Key Phrases: script task, data flow task, source editor, The Rational Guide To Extending, Control Flow, Visual Basic (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Integration Services feature of Microsoft® SQL Server 2005 brings together data from diverse sources in a high-performance data integration platform, to enable users to work across multiple applications that may not have been designed to cooperate. In this book, Donald Farmer, Microsoft's Group Program Manager for SQL Server Integration Services, clearly explains how to build practical and useful scripts for this exciting new SQL Server 2005 feature. His systematic approach, friendly tutorials, and numerous examples are suitable for both developers and IT professionals alike. You'll learn how scripting in SQL Server Integration Services can enable you to easily add new, fully-integrated functionality to achieve your enterprise data integration needs.

This book takes a rational, no-nonsense approach in a compact guide - only 224 pages. The book is written to give you the basics...fast!

Technical Accuracy is assured by Ashvini Sharma, Development Lead, SQL Server Integration Services, Microsoft Corporation.

* Bonus Chapter: "Monitoring SSIS Performance with Scripts"
* Bonus Chapter: "Accessing Web Services with SSIS Scripts"
* Bonus Chapter: "Using SSIS as a Data Service"
* Sample code for the examples in the book


About the Author
Donald Farmer is the Group Program Manager of the SQL Server Integration Services team at Microsoft. Donald has worked with SQL Server Business Intelligence tools since they first made an appearance in SQL Server 7.0, first working in Scotland for an independent software vendor before joining Microsoft itself. A well-known speaker at SQL Server events, Donald frequently draws on experiences from his varied career--which includes construction, archaeology, and fish farming--to illustrate the importance of analytic software in the real world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Rational Press (March 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932577254
• ISBN-13: 978-1932577259
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #235,773 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 16 in The Rational Guide Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and concise, June 29, 2007

By	Danny Crowell (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent book. It shows how to unleash the power of SSIS. Script (writing code) is the way to go when you need go beyond the tasks and transformations that are built into SSIS. This book shows how to customize, control, extend and monitor SSIS through code.

One of the best things about the book is that it is only around 200 pages. This book won't put you to sleep with the history of relational databases and ETL or trying to teach you Visual Basic.net. You will appreciate that if you are an experienced database and .net developer. [...]
The author helped to develop the product and is thoroughly knowledgeable about the subject. He is active in the Integration Services support forums.

There are some typos but they are easy to spot and do not cloud the information. I highly recommend this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars immensely useful, a gem, April 6, 2008

By	dotsnail "peter" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition 2005 CD/DVD
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) is a tool for developing and running data integration tasks, such as reading from files, transforming data, and loading data into databases, including, but not limited to, Microsoft SQL Server. It is an "ETL" (extract, transform, load) product, very powerful but easy to get lost in the product's documentation and whitepapers trying to figure out how to accomplish a given real-world task. Farmer's little book is a gem because it is short and it makes an effort to help a developer with real-world data integration tasks. This book's main theme is using the scripting facilities, but it does a good job giving a perspective. Donald Farmer is the SSIS program manager at Microsoft, and besides technical knowledge, he has the skills to educate. I have always felt that there are lots of great software products available, but that developers trying to solve problems have a hard time getting past the product demos and slides. This book, in the tradition of K&R's "The C Programming Language" helps developers take that step. In contrast, books that describe step-by-step procedures that are already described in the product documentation are not nearly as useful.
While SSIS has lots of toolboxes to do standard ETL tasks, scripting tasks are meant to add facilities that are awkward or impossible to do with standard designs. Scripting has access to the NET Framework and user-developed NET assemblies. Farmer's examples are helpful and inspiring. I hope he will write more books like this, but at the same time I like to see him, as product manager, take some annoyances and weaknesses out of the otherwise great SSIS product. Those who like to watch instructional videos will enjoy his presentations on MSDN TV.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For basic referece, October 27, 2008

By	Nirav Shah - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you are expecting some more practical world work example then you get surprised with the book material.

The better book i found is expert SSIS by wrox production..This is not worth to pay $16.If you are getting in cheap price then plan to buy it.
I Personally do not like this book.