New Integration Services Designer and Wizards
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) introduces a new user interface, SSIS Designer, for creating and maintaining Integration Services packages.
SSIS Designer is hosted in Business Intelligence Development Studio. Business Intelligence Development Studio is an integrated environment for developing business intelligence solutions, including cubes, data sources, reports, and Integration Services packages. Business Intelligence Development Studio includes different project types for developing specific parts of the solution: Analysis Services, Integration Services, and Reporting Services.
In Business Intelligence Development Studio, you develop projects in the context of a solution. A solution is a server-independent container that can include multiple Integration Services projects in addition to Analysis Services and Reporting Services projects.
The Integration Services project provides the templates for SSIS packages, and also the data source and data source view objects that packages use.
The following windows in Business Intelligence Development Studio support Integration Services projects and SSIS packages:
- The Toolbox window, for listing the elements available for building package control flow and data flow.
- Solution Explorer, for managing Integration Services project components.
- The Properties window, for viewing and modifying the properties of SSIS packages and their objects.
- The debug window, for debugging package workflow and viewing variable values.
- The output window, for displaying progress information when a package runs.
For more information, see New Business Intelligence Development Studio, and SQL Server Management Studio and Business Intelligence Development Studio.
SSIS Designer
SSIS Designer is a set of graphical tools that you can use to create and maintain SSIS packages. SSIS Designer graphically implements the SSIS object model, letting you create packages that perform a wide range of functions.
SSIS Designer is made up of three design surfaces and the Package Explorer:
- The control flow design surface on the Control Flow tab, for building the package functionality that consists of the discrete tasks the package performs, the precedence constraints that link one task to the next, and the looping structures that define repeating workflow in the package.
- The data flow design surface on the Data Flow tab, for building the package functionality that extracts data from multiple heterogeneous data sources, transforms the data, and loads the data into its destination data sources.
- The event handlers design surface on the Event Handlers tab, for building a workflow that reacts to the events that the tasks, containers, and packages raise at run time.
- The Package Explorer tab, which lists the objects that a package includes and displays the hierarchical structure of the package objects.
At run time, a Progress tab is added to SSIS Designer. This tab lists information about the running package, such as the time a task in the package starts and finishes. When the package stops, the run-time information remains available on the Execution Result tab until another package runs or the package is rerun.
SSIS packages use connections to connect to data sources such as files and databases. SSIS Designer includes a Connections tray for adding and managing connections.
Additionally, SSIS includes a set of dialog boxes that you use to add package functionality such as logging and configurations, to secure packages by using digital signatures, and to view the data that the package copies and modifies at run time. The dialog boxes are available on the SSIS menu in Business Intelligence Development Studio and in SSIS Designer.
For more information, see SSIS Designer and Creating Packages in SSIS Designer.
Integration Services Wizards
Integration Services includes a set of wizards for accomplishing complex tasks such as deploying SSIS packages to test and production servers, or migrating SQL Server 2000 Data Transformation Services (DTS) packages from the SQL Server 2000 format to SQL Server 2005.
Integration Services includes the following wizards:
- SQL Server Import and Export Wizard, for creating packages that copy data between a source and a destination. For more information, see Creating Packages Using the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard.
- Package Configuration Wizard, for creating configurations that can be deployed with packages. For more information, see Creating Package Configurations.
- Package Installation Wizard, for deploying packages and updating package configurations. For more information, see Deploying Integration Services Packages.
- Package Migration Wizard, for migrating SQL Server 2000 DTS packages to SQL Server 2005 Integration Services SSIS packages. For more information, see Migrating Data Transformation Services Packages.
For more information, see Integration Services Wizards.