Knight's Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Integration Services 24-Hour Trainer

Section 1

Installation and Getting Started

Lesson 1: Moving Data with the Import and Export Wizard

Lesson 2: Installing SQL Server Integration Services

Lesson 3: Installing the Sample Databases

Lesson 4: Creating a Solution and Project

Lesson 5: Exploring SQL Server Data Tools

Lesson 6: Creating Your First Package

Lesson 7: Upgrading Packages to SQL Server 2012

Lesson 8: Upgrading to the Project Deployment Model

Section 1

Installation and Getting Started

Lesson 1: Moving Data with the Import and Export Wizard

Lesson 2: Installing SQL Server Integration Services

Lesson 3: Installing the Sample Databases

Lesson 4: Creating a Solution and Project

Lesson 5: Exploring SQL Server Data Tools

Lesson 6: Creating Your First Package

Lesson 7: Upgrading Packages to SQL Server 2012

Lesson 8: Upgrading to the Project Deployment Model

Chapter 1

Moving Data with the Import and Export Wizard

The Import and Export Wizard is the easiest method to move data from sources like Excel, Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, and text files to nearly any destination. This wizard uses SSIS as a framework and can optionally save a package as its output prior to executing. The package it produces will not be the most elegant, but it can take a lot of the grunt work out of package development and provide the building blocks that are necessary for you to build the remainder of the package. Oftentimes as an SSIS developer, you’ll want to relegate the grunt work and heavy lifting to the wizard and do the more complex coding yourself. The wizard does no transformations or cleansing, but instead only moves data from point A to point B.

As with most SQL Server wizards, you have numerous ways to open the tool:

To open the Import and Export Wizard, right-click the database you want to import data from or export data to SQL Server Management Studio and select Tasks > Import Data (or Export Data based on what task you’re performing).

You can also open the wizard by right-clicking SSIS Packages in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and selecting SSIS Import and Export Wizard.

Another common way to open it is from the Start menu under SQL Server 2012 by choosing Import and Export Data.

The last way to open the wizard is by typing dtswizard.exe at the command line or Run prompt.

Regardless of whether you need to import or export the data, the first few screens in the wizard look very similar.

Once the wizard comes up, you see the typical Microsoft wizard welcome screen. Click Next to begin specifying the source connection. If you opened the wizard from Management Studio by selecting Export Data, this screen is prepopulated. In this screen, you specify where your data is coming from in the Source drop-down box. Once you select the source, the rest of the options on the dialog box may vary based on the type of connection. The default source is SQL Native Client, and it looks like Figure 1-1. You have OLE DB Sources like SQL Server, Oracle, and Access available out of the box. You can also use text files and Excel files. After selecting the source, you have to fill in the provider-specific information.

Figure 1-1

For SQL Server, you must enter the server name (localhost means go to your local machine’s SQL Server instance, if applicable) and the username and password you want to use. If you’re going to connect with your Windows account, simply select Use Windows Authentication. Windows Authentication will pass your Windows local or domain credentials into the data source. Lastly, choose a database that you’d like to connect to. For most of the examples in this book, you use the AdventureWorks2012 database. You can see Lesson 3 of this book for more information on installing this sample database.

NOTE You can find the sample databases used for this book at the Wrox website at www.wrox.com/go/SQLSever2012DataSets.

NOTE Additional sources such as Sybase and DB2 can also become available if you install the vendors’ OLE DB or ODBC providers. You can download additional providers for free if you’re using Enterprise Edition by going to the SQL Server 2012 Feature Pack on the Microsoft website. You also have ODBC and ADO.NET providers available to you in SQL Server 2012.

After you click Next, you are taken to the next screen in the wizard, where you specify the destination for your data. The properties for this screen are exactly identical to those for the previous screen with the exception of the database. On the next screen, if you select the Copy data from one or more tables or views option, you can simply check the tables you want. If you select the Write a query to specify the data to transfer option, you can write an ad hoc query (after clicking Next) addressing where to select the data from or what stored procedure to use to retrieve your data.

The next screen enables you to select the table or tables you want to copy over and which table names you want them to be transferred to. If you want, you can click the Edit button to go to the Column Mappings dialog box (shown in Figure 1-2) for each table. Here you can change the mapping between each source and destination column. For example, if you want the DepartmentID column to go to the DepartmentID2 column on the destination, simply select the Destination drop-down box for the DepartmentID column and point it to the new column, or choose to ignore the column altogether. By checking the Enabled identity insert box, you allow the wizard to insert into a column that has an identity (or autonumber) value assigned. If the data types don’t match between the source and destination columns, the wizard will add the necessary components to convert the data to a proper data type if possible.

Figure 1-2

The next screen enables you to save the package or just choose to run it immediately. You can uncheck Execute Immediately to just save the package for later modification and execution. You can open the package that executed in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) if you’d like. You do this by creating a project in SSDT and adding the package to the project. You cannot edit the package without an SSDT project to contain the package. We discuss how to create a project in Lesson 4 later in this book. The final screen executes the process and shows you the output log.

Try It

In this Try It, you learn how to quickly load a flat file into a database using the Import and Export Wizard. After this lesson, you’ll have a clear understanding of how the Import and Export Wizard is the easiest way to load data into almost any destination and how it is accessed from Management Studio or SSDT.

You can find the file associated with Lesson 1 on the companion website for this book at www.wrox.com.

Lesson Requirements

Load the ZipCodeExtract.csv file (which you can download at this book’s website at www.wrox.com) into any database of your choosing. We are using the AdventureWorks2012 database as our target, but that’s not a dependency. Note: The file’s first row holds the column names.

Hints

One of the fastest ways to access the Import and Export Wizard to load the data is through Management Studio. Right-click the target database and select Tasks > Import Data.

Step-by-Step

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio in the SQL Server 2012 program group.

2. Right-click the target database of your choosing (like AdventureWorks2012) and select Tasks > Import Data.

3. For the Data source, select Flat File Source, as shown in Figure 1-3. For the File name property, select the ZipCodeExtract.csv file that you can download from this book’s website at www.wrox.com. Check the Column names in the first data row option to read the column names from the first row of data from the flat file. Click the Columns page in the left pane to confirm that the file is delimited by commas.

4. Click Next to configure the destination. Point to any server and database you want.

5. On the Select Source Tables and Views screen, click Edit Mappings to go to the Column Mappings page. Change the StateAbbr to a size of 2 and the Population column to an int data type, as shown in Figure 1-4. Normally, you would evaluate each column to use the proper data length in an effort to save space.

Figure 1-3

Figure 1-4

6. Click OK to leave the Column Mappings page and then click Next to review any data type mapping warnings. The Data Mapping Warnings screen shows you where you have any columns for which the data types don’t match. You can ignore those warnings for the time being and click Next a few times to execute the package. If you are successful, you should see a total of 29,470 rows. You will see a truncation warning, which is a warning that you receive when you try to insert a 50-character string into a smaller sized column like a varchar(2), that you can also ignore.

Please select Lesson 1 on the DVD, or online at www.wrox.com/go/ssis2012video, to view the video that accompanies this lesson.

Chapter 2

Installing SQL Server Integration Services

This book requires that you have SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) service installed. To develop SSIS, you cannot use SQL Express. The SSIS run time to run packages does ship with all editions, but on some of the lower editions that run time may not work with all SSIS components.

On the subject of editions of SQL Server, you have a decision to make as to which edition you want to install: Standard Edition, Business Intelligence (BI), or Enterprise Edition. Developer Edition is also available. It contains all the components of Enterprise Edition at a tiny fraction of the cost but is licensed for development only. Enterprise Edition gives you a few additional SSIS components that you may be interested in for SQL Server 2012:

Data Mining components

Fuzzy Lookup and Group transforms

Dimension and Partition Processing destinations

Term Extraction and Lookup transforms

Higher performance components for ODBC, Oracle, and SAP

Change Data Capture components

Additionally, the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server gives you database engine features that complement or may affect SSIS. One such feature is the Change Data Capture (CDC) feature, which enables you to easily synchronize two systems by querying SQL Server 2012 for only the changes that have occurred after a given date or time. Data compression is another key feature that may speed up your database reads and reduce your disk cost by 60–75 percent.

Oftentimes, if you care about the Enterprise Edition features enough, but don’t need Enterprise Edition for the database engine, you might decide to license an SSIS server with just the minimum number of client access licenses (CALs) instead of doing a per-core license. This approach reduces your SQL Server licensing cost sizably, but you now have new hardware cost to add.

When you’re installing SQL Server, you need to ensure that the SQL Server Data Tools, Integration Services, and Management Tools - Complete check boxes are selected in the Feature Selection screen (shown in Figure 2-1). The Integration Services option installs the run time and service necessary to run the packages, and is likely all you would need on a production server. The SQL Server Data Tools option installs the designer components, and the Management Tools option installs the DBA tools necessary to manage the packages later.

Figure 2-1

After you complete the Feature Selection screen, SQL Server installs all the necessary components without any wizard configuration required for SSIS. Once the installation is complete, open the configuration file located at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\Binn\MsDtsSrvr.ini.xml. This file configures the SSIS service. Change the node where it currently says . to your SQL Server’s instance name where you want to store your packages. You can also change the directory from ..\Packages to the directory of your choice.

1.0 encoding=utf-8?> http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance>   true       SqlServerFolder>       MSDB       .         FileSystemFolder>       File System       ..\Packages      

Once you modify this file, you need to restart the SSIS service from the SQL Server Configuration Manager under the SQL Server 2012 node in the Start menu or the Services applet.

Please select Lesson 2 on the DVD, or online at www.wrox.com/go/ssis2012video, to view the video that accompanies this lesson.

Chapter 3

Installing the Sample Databases

You will need two sample databases for the future tutorials in this book and for many tutorials on the web; both are provided by Microsoft. The AdventureWorks2012 database is an example database that simulates a bike retailer. It contains HR, accounting, and sales data for online transactions and store sales. The AdventureWorksDW2012 database is an example data warehouse for the same bike reseller.

The two sample databases are not installed by default with SQL Server 2012. You can download the sample databases used for this book at the Wrox website at www.wrox.com/go/SQLSever2012DataSets.

To use the AdventureWorks2012 database, you must enable the Full Text Search feature and enable the FileStream feature in SQL Server 2012. In addition, the SQL Server Full Text service must be running. You can still install the AdventureWorksDW2012 database without these, but not the AdventureWorks2012 database.

To install the Full Text Search feature, you must go back to the SQL Server Installation Center under SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools > SQL Server Installation Center. Walk through the installation wizard again as if you were doing a new installation, but when you get to the Feature Selection screen, ensure Full Text Search and Semantic Extractions for Search are selected.

The FileStream feature enables you to store files quickly and easily on the filesystem of the server, but they are treated like columns in a table. When you back up the database, it also backs up all files to which the table may refer. The feature is initially enabled in the installation wizard, but you can also enable it after the installation in the SQL Server Configuration Manager under SQL Server 2012 > Configuration Tools. Once the Configuration Manager is open, double-click the SQL Server database instance on which you want to enable the feature. This opens up the properties of the service, where you can go to the FILESTREAM tab to enable the feature, as shown in Figure 3-1.

Figure 3-1

Enabling FileStream requires that you restart the SQL Server instance.

To install the sample databases, download the AdventureWorks2012 and AdventureWorksDW2012 (data warehouse) MDF data files from the Wrox website and attach them to your server using the CREATE DATABASE command, as shown in the following code:

CREATE DATABASE AdventureWorksDW2012 ON (FILENAME =

'C:\Data\AdventureWorksDW2012_Data.mdf') FOR ATTACH_REBUILD_LOG

Try It

In this Try It, you download and install the necessary example databases to work through the rest of the lessons in this book.

Lesson Requirements

To do the examples in the book, you’ll need at least 300 MB of hard drive space and the SQL Server 2012 database engine installed.

Hints

Navigate to www.wrox.com/go/SQLSever2012DataSets to download the sample databases and make sure the Full Text service is installed and running prior to the installation.

Step-by-Step

1. Browse to www.wrox.com/go/SQLSever2012DataSets in the browser of your choice.

2. Download the two MDF files for AdventureWorks2012 and AdventureWorksDW2012.

3. Run the following script in Management Studio to install the two databases, substituting your own path:

CREATE DATABASE AdventureWorks2012 ON (FILENAME = '{drive}:\{file

path}\AdventureWorks2012_Data.mdf') FOR ATTACH_REBUILD_LOG;

CREATE DATABASE AdventureWorksDW2012 ON (FILENAME = ':\

path>\AdventureWorksDW2012_Data.mdf') FOR ATTACH_REBUILD_LOG

WARNING Prior to installation, open the SQL Server Configuration Manager to start the SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher for your instance. Failure to do this will cause the installation to fail.

4. The sample databases are now installed and ready to use in Management Studio and for the rest of the examples.

Please select Lesson 3 on the DVD, or online at www.wrox.com/go/ssis2012video, to view the video that accompanies this lesson.

Chapter 4

Creating a Solution and Project

You cannot create an SSIS package in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) without first having a solution and project. Additionally, for execution of the package in debug mode, which you use when troubleshooting, your package must be in a project and solution. Projects and solutions are containers for your packages that help you keep every component together and make you a more efficient SSIS developer.

SSDT is the program in which you’re going to develop your SSIS packages. In SQL Server 2012, SSDT is a Visual Studio 2010 shell. You can either open SSDT by itself under the SQL Server 2012 program group or open it by opening the full Visual Studio 2012 program.

An SSIS project is a container of one or more packages and other SSIS components. All the Visual Studio suite of products use the project construct to hold their files. For example, Reporting Services uses projects to hold its reports, and VB.NET uses projects to hold its VB.NET class files. In general, you want to align an SSIS project with a business project you’re working on. For example, you may have an SSIS project called Data warehouse ETL.

Projects mean much more in SQL Server 2012 than they did in SQL Server 2005 and 2008. This is because you now deploy projects, not packages, to production if your project is using the project deployment model. If you want to use the legacy deployment model where you deploy a package at a time, you will use the package deployment model. The new project deployment model is where many of the new SQL Server 2012 features that are discussed later in this book are used.

A solution is a container of one or more projects. Solutions enable many disparate types of projects to live under one container. For example, you may have a solution called Enterprise Data Warehouse with a SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) project called Data warehouse reports, another project for SSIS called Data warehouse ETL, and a final one for C# called SharePoint code. All of those projects could live under one roof, so if a report developer makes a change in his SSRS project, the SSIS developer is aware of that change.

When you create a project in SSDT, a solution is automatically created at the same time. To create a project, you can open SSDT and select File > New > Project. As you can see in Figure 4-1, the solution name is Enterprise Data Warehouse and its project is called Datawarehouse Load.

Figure 4-1

At first, the solution will not appear in your Solution Explorer because you have only a single project. Once you add a second project, it will appear. You can add subsequent projects into the same solution by going back to File > New > Project and selecting Add to Solution from the Solution drop-down box (which is shown in Figure 4-3 in the Step-by-Step later in this chapter). When you create your first project, you’ll notice in the Solution Explorer, which shows you all the projects and files, that there appears to be no solution. This is because solutions are hidden from you when you have only a single project in the solution. You can choose to always see the solution file in the Solution Explorer by going to Tools > Options and checking the Always show solution option in the Projects and Solutions page (shown in Figure 4-2).

Try It

In this Try It, you learn how to create your first solution and project, which you’ll be using throughout the rest of the book.

You can download examples of completed package, project, and solution files for this lesson from the book’s website at www.wrox.com.

Figure 4-2

Lesson Requirements

To successfully complete this lesson, you need to create a solution called Personal Trainer Solution and a project called Personal Trainer SSIS Project that will be used throughout this book.

Hints

To create the project, open SQL Server Data Tools and select File > New > Project.

Step-by-Step

1. Open SSDT from the SQL Server 2012 program group.

2. Click File > New > Project.

3. Select Business Intelligence Projects for the project type.

4. Select Integration Services Project for the template.

5. Type Personal Trainer SSIS Project for the Name property, as shown in Figure 4-3.

6. Type C:\projects\ for the Location property.

7. Type Personal Trainer Solution for the Solution Name property.

Figure 4-3

Please select Lesson 4 on the DVD, or online at www.wrox.com/go/ssis2012video, to view the video that accompanies this lesson.

Chapter 5

Exploring SQL Server Data Tools

SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is a Visual Studio 2010 tool that helps you create, debug, and execute SSIS packages. When you’re a business intelligence developer, it can also help you create reports in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) or design cubes in SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). You’ll be using SSDT extensively throughout this book, so it’s important that in this lesson, you learn everything you need to know to make your life easier in this critical environment.

NOTE Because this is a more exploratory, introductory lesson, it doesn’t have a task-based tutorial as the other lessons have.

You can open SSDT through the SQL Server 2012 program group. Depending on your PC, SSDT may take some time to open.

NOTE One hint that you can use to reduce your load time is to eliminate the splash screen. To eliminate the SSDT splash screen and reduce your load time by a few seconds each time, right-click the SSDT shortcut and select Properties. Next, add the -NOSPLASH switch at the end of the shortcut as shown here:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\

devenv.exe" -NOSPLASH

The Solution Explorer

Once you create your project from Lesson 4, you’re ready to begin exploration of the environment. The most important pane, the Solution Explorer, is on the right. The Solution Explorer is where you can find all of your created SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) packages, shared connection managers, and parameters. As discussed in Lesson 4, a solution is a container that holds a series of projects. Each project holds a myriad of objects for whatever type of project you’re working in. For SSIS, it holds your packages, shared parameters, and shared connections (the latter two are available only in the project deployment model, which is discussed in this lesson shortly in the Deployment Models section). Once you create a solution, you can store many projects inside of it. For example, you might have a solution that has your VB.NET application and all the SSIS packages that support that application. In this case, you would probably have two projects: one for VB and another for SSIS.

Figure 5-1

After creating a new project, your Solution Explorer window contains a series of empty folders and a single package in the Packages folder. Figure 5-1 shows you a partially filled Solution Explorer. In this screenshot, you see a solution named Enterprise Data Warehouse with one project, an Integration Services project called Datawarehouse Load. Inside the project, you’ll find the single default package, Package.dtsx.

If you don’t see the solution name in your Solution Explorer, it’s because solutions are hidden when you have only a single project. In this scenario, the solution won’t appear by default. To always show the solution, you can select Tools > Options to open the Visual Studio options pane. Under Projects and Solutions, check Always show solution, as shown in Figure 5-2.

Figure 5-2

If you look into the directory that contains your solution and project files, you can see all the files that are represented in the Solution Explorer window. Some of the base files you might see will have the following extensions:

.dtsx—An SSIS package

.ds—A shared data source file

.sln—A solution file that contains one or more projects

.dtproj—An SSIS project file

.params—A shared parameter file

.conmgr—A shared connection manager

If you copy any file that does not match the .params, .conmgr, or .dtsx extension, it is placed in the Miscellaneous folder. This folder is used to hold any files such as Word documents that describe the installation of the package or requirements documents. Anything you’d like can go into that folder, and it can all potentially be checked into a source control system like SourceSafe with the code.

Deployment Models

In SQL Server 2012, you have two models for developing and deploying packages: package and project deployment models.

The package deployment model used to be the only deployment model that existed in SQL Server 2005 and 2008 and was where you could deploy only a package at a time to the server. It also had ways of configuring the packages to change properties like connections with XML files or tables.

With the new project deployment model, you can only deploy the entire project of packages, and packages can be configured by the database administrator (DBA) through parameters.

You can switch back and forth between these models, but the new project deployment model is much more robust with features. You can switch back and forth between the models by right-clicking the project in the Solution Explorer and selecting Convert to Project (or Package) Deployment Model. You learn much more about this functionality in Lessons 52 and 53.

The Properties Window

Figure 5-3

The Properties window (shown in Figure 5-3) is where you can customize almost any item that you have selected. For example, if you select a task in the design pane, you receive a list of properties to configure, such as the task’s name and what query it’s going to use. The view varies widely based on what item you have selected. Figure 5-3 shows the properties of the Execute SQL Task. You can also click the white background of the Control Flow tab to see the package properties in the Properties window. Sometimes, you can see some more advanced properties in the Properties pane than what the task’s editor user interface provides you.

The Toolbox

Figure 5-4

The Toolbox contains all the items that you can use in the particular tab’s design pane at any given point in time. For example, the Control Flow tab has a list of tasks and containers (a partial list is shown in Figure 5-4). This list may grow based on what custom tasks are installed. The list is completely different when you’re in a different tab, such as the Data Flow tab. Many of the core tasks you see in Figure 5-4 are covered in Section 2 of this book in much more detail.

The Toolbox is organized into sections such as Common, Containers, and Other Tasks. These tabs can be collapsed and expanded for usability. As you use the Toolbox, you may want to customize your view by moving items to your favorites by right-clicking a given task or container and selecting Add to Favorites. Also, after you install a custom component, it automatically shows up in your Toolbox. When you select a component like a task from the Toolbox, notice that below the Toolbox pane, an interactive help section appears that enables you to see samples and a short description of the component.

NOTE At some point, you may accidentally close a window like the Properties window. If this happens to you, you can bring that window back through the View menu. You can also click the pushpin on any particular window to hide the window because real estate is at a premium when you begin development of SSIS.

The SSDT Design Environment

The SSDT environment contains two key tabs for designing packages: the Control Flow and Data Flow tabs. Each of these handles different parts of your packages. The Control Flow tab controls the execution of the package and the Data Flow tab handles the movement of data.

The Control Flow tab orchestrates the execution of your package, dictating that one task, such as an FTP Task, should execute ahead of another; for example, an Execute SQL Task. Inside the tab are tasks and containers you can drag over from the Toolbox onto the design pane. Each of those tasks has its own user interface that you can use to configure the task, and you can access it by double-clicking the component.

Each package has only a single Control Flow, but can have many Data Flows. The user interface for the Data Flow task is quite different. Its user interface is the Data Flow tab. In the Data Flow tab, you can configure one or more Data Flow tasks by dragging over sources, transforms, and destinations onto the design pane. Each Control Flow can have any number of Data Flow tasks, each of which results in a new item in the Data Flow tab’s drop-down list of tasks. The Data Flow is essentially where you’re going to configure the movement of your data from nearly any source to nearly any destination.

When you execute a package by right-clicking it in the Solution Explorer and selecting Execute Package, you enter debug mode. Notice a new tab called Progress immediately opens. The Progress tab is where you go to debug when a package has a problem. You can also go to the Output window below to see a textual view of the same Progress tab. Once you stop debug mode by clicking the Stop button or by going to Debug > Stop Debugging, the Progress tab changes to an Execution Results tab, which shows you the last run of a package. Each of those tabs shows you more than the Output window at the bottom, which shows you only critical issues.

One other handy thing you can do from within SSDT is open Server Explorer. Server Explorer enables you to create a connection to a SQL Server database that you can manage just as you would in Management Studio. You can do this by selecting Tools > Connect to Database. Type in the credentials for the database, and then you’re ready to run queries against the database, create stored procedures, or redesign tables, to name just a few things you can do.

Now that you’ve taken a look at the SSDT environment, Lesson 6 covers using the environment to create your first package.

Please select Lesson 5 on the DVD, or online at www.wrox.com/go/ssis2012video, to view the video that accompanies this lesson.

Chapter 6

Creating Your First Package

Creating packages in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a bit like LEGO-block programming. You drag various tasks over, configure the tasks, chain them together, and then voila, execute. Well, it’s not quite that easy, but you’ll find it much easier than writing any program. In this lesson, you learn how to create your first SSIS package. Granted, the package does very little here, but it shows you many of the concepts that will be critical throughout the rest of the book. Many of the concepts may not make complete sense yet when it comes to configuring various components, but no worries—the concepts are deeply covered throughout the rest of the book.

To create your first package, you need an SSIS project. Creating a project is covered extensively in Lesson 4. After you create your first project, a package called Package.dtsx is automatically created. If you want to rename this package, simply right-click the package in Solution Explorer and select Rename, leaving the .dtsx extension.

To create a new package, you can also right-click