With SQL Server abandoning OleDB in favor of ODBC, it is no surprise that SQL Server Integration Services is finally picking up ODBC support. Microsoft’s partners on the feature, Attunity, are also working on a SSIS feature called Change Data Capture. Details are still sparse; this is what we know so far:
This includes a CDC Control Task, a CDC Source component, and a CDC Splitter transform (that splits the output based on the CDC operation – insert/update/delete). It also includes CDC support for Oracle.
An important feature is the much overdue support for the popular CSV or Comma-Separated Values format. The current version of SSIS is unable to parse CSV files that include embedded double-quotes and commas. They are also adding support for flat files with a varying number of columns in each record.
To add with development, parameters can be externalized. When running under Visual Studio, the same configuration settings you use for .NET projects (e.g. Debug/Release) can be used for changing parameter values. Another debugging feature is the ability to add “data taps”. A data tap can be programmatically added in production to inspect data flowing through a package. Logs are saved as CSV files.