Integration Servicesis formally defined as a set of graphical, console utilities and software items for extracting, transforming and consolidating data from different sources like MySQL, Oracle, Hadoop, XML, dbf, Excel, etc.

In this article we would like to introduce Top 10 the most useful features that SSIS 2012 version brings into our lives.

Undo/Redo

Package designer in SQL Server 2012 didn’t support undo/redo actions. For example, if you had deleted a paragraph in Word you had to rewrite it again! It was commonly for SSIS Designer. But now SSIS Designer supports about 20 undo/redo actions.

Environments and Parameters

There is no need to use configuration files or tables to pass parameters into the package. Developers don’t have to worry about the group of configuration files, now they are separated from packages.

Improvements for the Flat File Source

Text files are supported with variable number of columns.Lines like ‘What’s new in SSIS’ arealso imported correctly.

Debugging the Script Component

Professional developers don’t need to use debugging. Script Task and Script Component support. Net 4.0. Also the ability of debugging is available in Script Component.

Connection Manager

Now you can make connection for entire project. Previously we had to copy connections from the one to another packages. With this version you don’t need to change all the packages in the project in order to change the server name. In the designer you can mark connection as “Work Offline” to simplify debugging packages. One more key feature is that you can cache the data in memory in master package to make it accessible through the all child packages.

ODBC support

Do you think ODBC is dead? Definitely not. Microsoft looks up to ODBC. Of course, previously ODBC support existed but the connection speed was very low.

Reports

Have you ever thought why the SSIS package was closed with error or have being executed 3 hours instead 5 minutes? It takes a lot of efforts looking through the large text logs file. Now the reports are available in SISS to let users track the bugs or performance issues.

Data Taps

Can you imagine the ability of Data Viewer to be added without package changes and to record data into the disk, not just display it on the screen? Now there is an opportunity debugging SSIS packages even without the right to access the data source.

Backing up

SSISDB is enabled in SISS 2012 which stores SSISDB directory. SSISDB directory is a central point for working with SSIS 2012 projects. Objects that are stored in SSISDB include projects, packages, options, environment and activity log. Now you can just do backup of SSISDB database using standard SQL Server’s means. SSIS packages could be easily backed up in the previous version in case if are stored in the msdb file system. But contained in the packets configuration files are stored in the file system. These files are not copied when creation of the msdb backup database.

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Author’s Bio: Andrew Smith is a Software Developer at QArea Company, writer, professional blogger, and social media enthusiast. QArea is Software Development Outsourcing Company.