Datasheet

The SSIS runtime engine and its complementary programs actually run your SSIS packages. The engine
saves the layout of your packages and manages the logging, debugging, configuration, connections, and
transactions. Additionally, it manages handling your events when one is raised in your package. The
runtime executables provide the following functionality to a package that you’ll explore in more detail
later in this chapter:
❑ Containers: Provide structure and scope to your package
❑ Tasks: Provide the functionality to your package
❑ Event Handlers: Respond to raised events in your package
❑ Precedence Constraints: Provide ordinal relationship between various items in your package
In Chapter 3, you’ll spend a lot of time in each of these architecture sections, but the vital ones are
introduced here.
Packages
A core component of SSIS and DTS is the notion of a package. A package best parallels an executable
program in Windows. Essentially, a package is a collection of tasks that execute in an orderly fashion.
Precedence constraints help manage which order the tasks will execute in. A package can be saved onto
a SQL Server, which in actuality is saved in the msdb database. It can also be saved as a .DTSX file, which
is an XML-structured file much like .RDL files are to Reporting Services. Of course, there is much more to
packages than that, but you’ll explore the other elements of packages, like event handlers, later in this
chapter.
Tasks
A task can best be described as an individual unit of work. They provide functionality to your package,
in much the same way that a method does in a programming language. The following are some of the
tasks available to you:
❑ ActiveX Script Task: Executes an ActiveX script in your SSIS package. This task is mostly for
legacy DTS packages.
❑ Analysis Services Execute DDL Task: Executes a DDL task in Analysis Services. For example,
this can create, drop, or alter a cube.
❑ Analysis Services Processing Task: This task processes a SQL Server Analysis Services cube,
dimension, or mining model.
❑ Bulk Insert Task: Loads data into a table by using the
BULK INSERT SQL command.
❑ Data Flow Task: This very specialized task loads and transforms data into an OLE DB destination.
❑ Data Mining Query Task: Allows you to run predictive queries against your Analysis Services
data-mining models.
❑ Execute DTS 2000 Package Task: Exposes legacy SQL Server 2000 DTS packages to your SSIS
2005 package.
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Welcome to SQL Server Integration Services
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