The Data Engineer Blog

Posted on February 12, 2020

In this article, we will give an overview of the first two tasks provided by Integration Services (SSIS) that allows manipulating OLAP cubes and executing commands over SSAS. These two tasks are Analysis Services Processing Task and Analysis Services Execute DDL Task.

Posted on February 6, 2020

In this article, we will explain how a string to date conversion can be achieved implicitly, or explicitly in SQL Server using built-in functions such as CAST(), TRY_CAST(), CONVERT(), TRY_CONVERT() and TRY_PARSE().

Posted on January 28, 2020

SQL join multiple tables is one of the most popular types of statements executed while handling relational databases. As known, there are five types of join operations: Inner, Left, Right, Full and Cross joins. In this article, we will explain the meaning of Joins in SQL, we will describe each... [Read More]

Posted on January 23, 2020

SQL cursor is one of the most popular database objects. It is used to retrieve data from the result set of an SQL query one row at a time. Even if the cursor is not recommended from a performance perspective, they are still widely used especially when handling a small... [Read More]

Posted on January 13, 2020

This article is a supplement to the previously published article, An overview of SQL String Functions . This time, we will describe another bunch of SQL string functions used in SQL Server.

Posted on January 10, 2020

One of the most asked questions is how to link an OLAP cube with a relational database, or in another way how to join the result of an MDX query with a table stored in a relational database. In this article, we will illustrate how to link a SQL Server... [Read More]

Posted on January 2, 2020

A step-by-step guide to extract hyperlinks from excel files and store them into SQL Server using SSIS

Posted on December 25, 2019

In this article, we will try to give a brief overview of the SQL string functions used in SQL Server and we will provide some examples. A string function is a function that takes a string value as an input regardless of the data type of the returned value. In... [Read More]

Posted on December 16, 2019

Radiation pollution has been always a critical concern, since it can cause a huge damage to humans and for nature. To minimize the damage, governments are collecting and monitoring radiation level using advanced systems. In the past years, Big data technologies such as distributed file systems, NoSQL databases and stream... [Read More]

Posted on December 9, 2019

In this article, we will describe SQL Server Profiler and how it can be used. In addition, we will mention the tools that are integrated with it- plans about its deprecation, and what are the alternatives?

Posted on December 4, 2019

In this article, first, we will briefly describe foreach loops and for loops. Then, we will give an overview of SSIS Foreach Loop Container and For Loop Container. Finally, we will compare these two containers.

Posted on November 22, 2019

In this article, we will give a brief overview of SSIS Balanced Data Distributor (BDD). In addition, we will give some examples and illustrate alternatives.

Posted on November 21, 2019

The Data Profiling task in SSIS is an important task that can be used to assess the quality of data sources. Unfortunately, this component is not widely used by many business intelligence developers. [Read More]

Posted on November 14, 2019

In this article, we illustrate how to use the OFFSET FETCH feature as a solution for loading large volumes of data from a relational database using a machine with limited memory and preventing an out of memory exception. We describe how to load data in batches to avoid placing a... [Read More]

Posted on October 29, 2019

SSIS Script component is a prominent strength of SQL Server Integration Services since it allows developers to implement any complex logic and utilize libraries from the powerful .NET framework or third-parties. In this article, we will give an overview of SSIS Script component, and illustrate the benefits of using it.... [Read More]

Posted on October 29, 2019

In this article, we will give an overview of using Flat Files and Raw Files in SSIS, then we will illustrate some of the differences between using these two types.

Posted on October 11, 2019

Until now, Microsoft has not included the XML Destination component in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). Many years ago, this component was requested on the Microsoft connect website, but it was closed as “Won’t fix.” For this reason, many workarounds and third-party components were created. In this article, we’ll talk... [Read More]

Posted on October 4, 2019

In this article, I will first give an overview of SSIS data types and data types conversion methods and then I will illustrate the difference between changing the columns data types from the Source Advanced editor and using Data Conversion Transformation.

Posted on October 4, 2019

In this article, I will first give an overview of the OLE DB, ODBC, and ADO.NET SSIS connection managers. Then I will try to illustrate the difference between them when trying to connect to SQL Server.

Posted on September 25, 2019

In this article, we will first give an overview on SSIS derived column transformation, then we will run an experiment to check if there is any difference between adding multiple expressions within one derived column transformation and adding a derived column transformation for each expression.

Posted on September 17, 2019

In this article, I will describe the difference between using output parameters and result sets within Execute SQL Task in SSIS.

Posted on September 9, 2019

In this article, I will give an overview of Execute SQL Task in SSIS and I will try to illustrate some of the differences between writing an expression to evaluate SqlStatementSource property or writing this expression within a variable and change the Execute SQL Task Source Type to variable.

Posted on August 30, 2019

In this article, I will give an overview of SSIS OLE DB Destination and SQL Server Destination and I will try to illustrate some of the difference between both destination components based on my personal experience, SSIS official documentation and some other experts experience in this domain.

Posted on August 27, 2019

In this article, I will first give an introduction about SSIS expressions, then I will describe briefly the Expression Task and how to Evaluate a variable as expression. Then I will do a comparison between these two features to illustrate the similarities and differences between them.

Posted on August 22, 2019

SQL Server Integration Services provides a wide variety of features that helps developers to build a robust Extract, Transform and Load process. After many years contributing to SSIS related tags on Stackoverflow.com, I can say that many developers have some misunderstanding about SSIS features (SSIS OLE DB Source, SSIS Expressions,... [Read More]