SSIS (Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services) is a platform for building enterprise-level data integration and data transformations solutions. SSIS is used to perform ETL operations; i.e. extract, transform and load data.
SSIS is an ETL tool from a Microsoft product, it used to solve complex business problems by extracting the data from different sources and do the business transformations and load it to the respective target systems. The packages can work alone or together with other packages to address complex business needs. SSIS can extract and transform data from a wide variety of sources such as XML data files, flat files, and relational data sources, and then load the data into one or more destinations.
These types of operations are commonly referred to in the industry as ETL, which stands for:
Extract, Transform and Load.
Integration Services includes a rich set of built-in tasks and transformations; tools for constructing packages; and the Integration Services service for running and managing packages. You can use the GUI to create solutions without writing a single line of code, or you can program the extensive Integration Services object model to create more complex tasks.
The precursor to SSIS was released with SQL Server 2000, and was called Data Transformation Services (DTS).
- SSIS was introduced with SQL Server 2005, and was a complete overhaul of the component, centering around control-flow-centric DTSX packages.
- There were minor improvements with SQL Server 2008.
- The SQL Server 2012 version contains many differences from the 2008 version, including changes to deployment, debugging, troubleshooting and other areas. It has also had a visual facelift, with more attention to ease of development.
- SQL Server 2014 didn’t have any changes for SSIS, but on the side new sources or transformations were added to the product. This was done by separate downloads trough CodePlex (an open-source code website) or through the SQL Server Feature Pack (example: Balanced Data Distributor).
- In SQL Server 2016 there were some updates to the SSIS product. Instead of deploying entire projects, you can new deploy packages individually again. There are additional sources – especially cloud and big data sources – and some important changes were made to the catalog, also it supports Backward Compatibility and you can build Package parts that can be reused in many packages.
SSIS and Visual studio versions
- SQL Server 2022: SQL Server Integration Services Projects 2022 extension (public preview)
- SQL Server 2019: Integration Services Projects extension
- SQL Server 2017: SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio 2017
- SQL Server 2016: SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio 2015
- SQL Server 2014: SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio 2015 or SQL Server Data Tools - Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2013
- SQL Server 2012: SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio 2015 or SQL Server Data Tools - Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012
- SQL Server 2008 / 2008 R2: Business Intelligence Development Studio from SQL Server 2008
- SQL Server 2005: Business Intelligence Development Studio from SQL Server 2005
