June 11, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Hello,
I am in a position that i need to evaluate using DTS or SSIS for importing flat files to a warehouse. I am hearing that ssis slows down development time *significantly* over dts. I use ssis for sql server to sql server data migration and I find this quite easy but I was never a very strong 2000 dts user. Almost our entire environment has moved to SQL 2005 so I am having a difficult time justifying the idea of keeping 2000 around just for the dts designer. Not to mention that i would have to have everyone trained on both dts and ssis.
Can someone help make the case for or against going to ssis?
Thank you
June 12, 2007 at 12:57 pm
SSIS is better, but in true fashion everyone seems to bitch and gripe about learning it and the new features
June 12, 2007 at 1:58 pm
That is kinda what I was thinking but experience tells me to tread lightly before stomping my foot.
Thanks
June 12, 2007 at 6:55 pm
SSIS has a steep learning curve, but it has tons of features that don't exist in DTS. It is a much more powerful tool, so it takes more effort to learn how to use it well. Once you get well along the learning curve you should be more productive in SSIS.
SSIS has a huge performance advantage over DTS. Over time that should make up for the initial pain.
The only excuse IMHO for not migrating to SSIS would be if you have a huge investment in complex ActiveX scripts that will have to be manually rewritten. In many cases the more intelligent tasks in SSIS can make scripting unnecessary, but this requires rethinking the entire design of the DTS package. On the other hand, you know DTS is going away eventually so the sooner you start migrating the better.
That's 3 points for SSIS and 0 for DTS. Anyone continuing to do new development in DTS is just adding to the problems they will have to face later.
June 13, 2007 at 12:48 pm
If the environment has moved to 2005 and its new development, there's no real reason to not go to SSIS. It's going to be the tool used in future releases of SQL Server, so going back to the previous release makes as much as sense as going back to VB6 when you've got .NET code already in production.
SSIS offers more functionality, more flexibility, better error handling, it's faster... DTS... um... well... It's nice.
There is a learning curve with SSIS. More than that, it's a bit of a paradigm shift from DTS, so the hard core DTS experts are going to have a tougher time with it than someone coming to it fresh. That's really the only drawback and from your description, it won't affect you.
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June 15, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Thanks for all your comments. I also tested the tool on various text files and found no real difficulties so going forward DTS is really a hard sell for me.
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