Unconventional use of SSIS

Use of SSIS with SQL Server, DB2, Teradata, Oracle, Excel, Flat files, and other such relational source is quite known among the developer community. But SSIS has it's use in a variety of areas, and some of them are so unconventional that one would not even think of using SSIS with such areas. I have worked with some of such areas, and I thought of sharing a list of such areas in my vision.

1) SSRS - SSIS can be very well used with SSRS and vice-versa too. SSIS can hook into SSRS to control reporting side and SSRS can access SSIS as a data source thru it's SSIS data processing extension. An article authored by me on the same topic can be read from here.

2) Sharepoint - SSIS can read and write data from Sharepoint lists and an article on the same topic can be read from here.

3) Windows Management Instrumentation - SSIS has got features to read data using WMI, and those who have worked with WMI and/or WMI Script would know that it can generate any possible information about any system ranging from a stand alone machine to an entire network topology. WMI can also be seen as the reporting face of OS kernel.

4) SAP - SSIS has got connectors for use with SAP, but a great deal of support still lacks for this area. Connectors are available to hook into SAP but generally the security policy of any enterprise does not allow such access. Still by exporting data from SAP to a sandboxed environment, data can be moved from and to SAP tables. This approach helps quite a lot in a Systems Integration programme or a data migration project.

5) Peoplesoft / JD Edwards - This can be seen similar to the SAP area. Biztalk and SSIS both are considered as possible options to use with it, but to the best of my knowledge, peoplesoft runs on Oracle or DB2 and both gel well with SSIS. So this again falls in the territory of SSIS comparing the cost options and developer expertise of SSIS versus Biztalk.

6) Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit - This toolkit also generate a lot of asset management data from the enterprise network. It can been seen as a scaled down version of WMI, but this can generate tonnes of information and reports and SSIS can provide a helping hand to it.

7) Maps Services - Web based maps services like Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, Google Maps are some of the frequently used third party services for developing spatial intelligence. These services use different file formats, generate responses in a variety of formats and SSIS has a big role to play in synchronizing and standardizing the data generated by the same.

Above is a brief list in my vision. If you have come across such unconventional use of SSIS, please feel free to add to this list by commenting on this post.