THE SOLUTION EXPLORER WINDOW

The Solution Explorer window is where you can find all your created SSIS packages, project connection managers, project parameters, and any other miscellaneous files needed for the project, such as installation documents. As mentioned earlier, 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. Once you create a solution, you can store many projects inside of it. For example, you may have a solution that has your VB.NET application and all the SSIS packages that support that application. In this case, you would have two projects: one for VB and another for SSIS contained within the single solution.

After creating a new project, your Solution Explorer window will contain a series of empty folders. Figure 2-13 shows a partially filled Solution Explorer. In this screenshot, there’s a solution named ProSSISSolution with two projects: SSASProject and ProSSISProject. Inside that project are two SSIS packages.