All medium to large companies have to deal with data being stored in a number of databases, spreadsheets and proprietary applications. Bringing all this data together into one system can be useful to analyzing the business; but can also be quite difficult to do. Integration Services is the next big bet in Microsoft's business intelligence lineup, providing you with true enterprise extract transform and load features (ETL).

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services concentrates on providing you with real world solutions to real world problems, giving you a head start on various projects. If you are only evaluating Integration Services, you'll be able to focus on the early chapters with the option of drilling down into details in the later chapters where some of the more complex concepts will be discussed in detail. The interesting sidebars peppered throughout the book provide insight into the processes, people and decisions that yielded the final IS product.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 24 Ratings

Saving my bacon! - 2009-11-05
Reviewer Rating:
I have experience building simple DTS packages in SQL Server 2000, so when 2005/2008 hit the market, I was really confused. I'm not a VB programmer; I vastly prefer the Management Studio/Query Analyzer interface over other GUIs in the SQL Server environment, and where the heck did my Import/Export Wizard go? Thank you, Kirk, for explaining that first! I would advise reading Chapter 2, Setting up Integration Services.
I finally had to bite the bullet and get with the program; for me Books Online was hopeless, 'way too fragmented, if I could even find the topic that I was looking for. I disagree with a previous reviewer, this is not just a reference book, this is reference + tutorial. If you need to build an FTP task, for instance, pop over to page 151 and start following the directions. As Kirk works through the description of how to set it up, he explains why he's doing what he's doing. I'm finding this book to be one of the most valuable in my SQL 2005 collection.

This is a thourough and detailed reference - 2009-10-06
Reviewer Rating:
If you are looking for an Step-by-Step type book (which apparently quite a few reviewers are) this is not it. What it does is provide you with a very detailed understanding of SSIS. That said, I still was able to go from never using SSIS to having a fairly good working knowledge using nothing but this book in about a week and a half, so I'm not exactly sure what the issue others had is. If you're willing to learn the concepts and apply them on your own, I think you'll find this to be an invaluable resource. A year and a half later I still use it to look something or other up about once a week and it never disappoints.

Missing Appendix B - 2008-02-28
Reviewer Rating:
On page 191, it says there is an Appendix B "Expression Syntax and Cookbook". In fact, there are only two pages reference sheets.

Learn by Doing? Not the book for you. - 2008-01-25
Reviewer Rating:
I learn by doing, and this book didn't work for me. While I am sure this books has all the answers I wouldn't know where to look to find them. It is too long to get practical results in a resonable amount of time, and it is a dry read.

It's not a HOW TO book - 2007-10-09
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book in late 2006 as migrating from DTS to SSIS. It was the best rated SSIS book back in late 2006, guess those reviewers had different expectations from mine. Although this book gave me overview of each feature of SSIS, it did not help me much for doing actual projects past year. I learned more about specifics of using SSIS from internet (googling about functions or properties) than this book.

I totally agree with some reviewers saying that this is a paper version of BOL. If you are looking for some simple overview of SSIS, this may be the one for you.

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