September 2, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I need to buy a book that is focussed on SSIS and would like people's opinions on which one to get. I've always rated Wrox books and at the moment i'm torn between:
Expert SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
and
Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
If anyone has either of these books and let me know what is good and bad about them i'd much appreciate it so i can decide. If anyone has any other books they can recommend then let me know also. I'm discounting the Apress Pro SQL Server 2005 Integration Services as i've heard it's written from a programmer's angle and not a database specialist one.
Any comments much appreciated,
Matt
September 3, 2008 at 4:49 am
Has no one bought a specialist book on SSIS? I find it hard to believe. Help is needed urgently.
September 3, 2008 at 6:53 am
Check the Wrox Publication books. These books help to you.
September 4, 2008 at 5:01 am
I bought "Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services" and have not found it as helpful (as a reference) as I had hoped. Brian Knight is a real knowledgable guy (I enjoyed a couple of his SSIS webcasts) but I found the book to much of the typical computer book screen-shot-after-screen-shot. (On the other hand, it may just be me -- I don't like SSIS much, and find it hard to work with and understand. I may well change my opinion if I ever get the time to sit down and read through the book completely.)
September 4, 2008 at 6:51 am
Just to let people know I have bought the Expert SQL Server 2005 Integration Services from Wrox. The review on Amazon for Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services didn't seem great and the Expert book claims to have more step by step real life application of SSIS principles rather than just a description. I've only just got it and it doesn't look like a reference book (no description of all the tasks for example, but it probabl assumes you to have passed this stage and aren't buying the book for this reason). I'll let people know what i think of it when i've had a chance to look through it. It isn't as big as the Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, but then i guess you'd expect that.
If more people have recommendations i'd still like to hear people's opinions.
Matt
September 4, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I believe the "Expert" book you bought is really a follow-on to the "Professional". As such, you may get the feeling you're missing something when using it.
Another, single-volume, book to consider is Kirk Haselden's from SAMS publishing. I've found useful material in both the Knight books and that one.
I consider the money I spent on the Microsoft Press "Step by Step" book a waste. It's virtually useless as a reference and even the tutorial approach is crippled by lack of explanation or background information.
September 5, 2008 at 12:42 am
Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services really worked for me. I suppose its different strokes for different folks.
What I did find to be very helpful when just starting on SSIS:
- MSDN labs. Even though not practical in real life, they gave me enough of a look and a feel to understand how to navigate the tool
- Jamie's site (which for the life of me is suddenly not on the tip of my tongue)
- SQL Server Central. Everyone here has always assisted when one gets stuck with some reeeeaaallly good advice.
On the topic of not liking SSIS, once again, different strokes for different folks. The one thing I did find myself changing from GUI based is update statements. In SSIS these are row based (at least the ones I had were - if I am wrong please help me out), and the way you pass parameters leaves a whole lot to be desired. Lets say you have a 13 million row customer dimension with 50 fields to update, the maintenance will kill you and the update statement is going to grind along at snail pace. But on the whole, after delivering a huuuuuge project recently leveraging from SSIS (and outshining its legacy application by lightyears) I still remain amazed at its capabilities.
My 5 cents worth
~PD
September 5, 2008 at 12:43 am
Jamie's site - Conchango.
My bad, getting old here
September 5, 2008 at 4:11 am
Thanks for all comments. I know what you mean about it not being a reference - it isn't. But then again i've been using SSIS for a while and know quite a bit about the basic concepts and the tools and tasks. I was really wanting to know a lot more about the best way to do dynamic packages so you could pass in connections at runtime or change things inside the package. I was also interested in where you can't do things in tasks and have to use the dts runtime library to access variables and other properties. It has this in it, but there isn't a lot.
From initial looks the bulk of the book (which isn't that thick really) is based at using SSIS to populate and run SSAS, which is ok if that is what you use SSIS for, but if not a large part of the book may be a bit of a waste of time (although i for one like to know what it can do for all circumstances in case i need this skill).
Can i add a request to this topic - if i am now looking for a reference book then which is the best book? I usually go for Wrox and the Professional book may be the best, but it hardly gets glowing reviews so there may be better ones out there. I've been to look in my local book shops, but since SSIS is reasonably niche there isn't much choice and buying online means you don't get to see much of the book to may a decision about so it is a bit of a stab in the dark.
Thanks for all comments thus far. Any further ones will be much appreciated,
Matt
September 5, 2008 at 4:58 am
I have "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services" (Kirk Haselden) from Sams and "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services Step by Step" (many authors) from Microsoft Press. They take a different approach to SSIS and both have proven valuable. I prefer Kirk's book for his discussion of package configurations, but found significantly more information on this topic browsing various web sites.
September 5, 2008 at 5:22 am
Terry Phelps (9/5/2008)
... but found significantly more information on this topic browsing various web sites.
How true -- If I had a Google account, it would have been overdrawn since I started trying to grok SSIS. The other day I posted a question here, then went back to continue my Google search for an answer. About 15 mins after my post, Google found a hit that looked like it directly addressed my problem, but when I followed the link I was taken to the question I had just posted here!
Those guys are fast!
But SSIS is so convoluted and disjointed (at least to me), I despair of finding any better source than web searches to answer SSIS questions.
(The good news, I later received an excellent answer to my question here in response to my original post. Thanks trueboar!)
September 5, 2008 at 5:45 am
Most books have good examples of simple environments, but don't match what we have in the real world. I support multiple environments (dev, qa, prod), for multiple clients (hosted web and db servers), on multiple machines (some with multiple SQL instances). We developed a configuration methodology that worked well with SQL 2000 DTS (using structured storage files and dtsrun parameters for instance and database names), but SSIS implementation has been more complex. The books have not been much help here, but Jamie's blog (http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson) has been useful.
Also, operations support personnel need to resolve job errors on the production server. It is relatively easy to load the failed DTS package, modify a few global variables, and step through the remaining steps. It is not so easy to debug and step through an SSIS package. This has delayed our migration from DTS to SSIS, so we are running DTS on our SQL 2005 servers with very few modifications.
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