I can see SQL Server blogosphere getting painted with new discoveries that professionals make by browsing CTP1. Then they make a lot of efforts to draft a step by step tutorial on how to use the new feature and post in on their blogs. This is quite a lot of effort, especially for a lazy person like me. What am I doing to explore new features and share the same? Well my resource detection radar picks up any useful resource that can cut my efforts and help me explore things in an appealing and effective manner. And this time my radar has dug out a video from TechEd Europe 2011, where SSIS Group program manager Steve Swartz demonstrates the upcoming enhancements in SSIS in Denali / 2011 version, along with detailed theoretical explanation. This 1 hr video can be watched as well as downloaded from here.
Those who do not have time and patience to watch this 1Hr video, here are some bullet points in my version of explanation.
1) From a usability perspective, controls toolbox seems more organized. Also some pampering controls like "Source Assistant" are provided for creating connection managers. Fortunately a perfectly working Undo and Redo are in place.
2) Transforms were very brittle in earlier versions, and change in metadata would very easily break the flow. Also the transform were being left almost uneditable once the input source breaks. This has been taken care of now, and a new mapping dialog has come in place to take care of change metadata from input sources. This is a very big welcome change.
3) Project, Parameters and Environments are new concepts that are introduced. Actually again if I look from application development territory, Project and Parameters seems like global and local scoped variables. Now a package contains variables and parameters. Again Parameters and Environment takes the same level semantics of local and global. Packages are the execution units on which these scopes get applied. Check out the video for a better understanding with demonstration.
4) Improved build and deployment model, tighter integration of SSIS with SSMS as well as tighter control and configuration of SSIS from SQL Server. Earlier sometimes SSIS seemed to me more of an independent application, which uses SQL Server just as a storage box. Now it seems much more integrated than earlier version.
5) Data Quality Services and Lineage Analysis are two of the most exciting enhancements that we are looking forward to be introduced in upcoming CTPs. If these points are getting your nerves excited, watch out the video.
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