A very basic and completely insufficient introduction to data integration with SQL Server

There are lots of cool features in SQL Server 2008. Complete books and hundreds of blogs, articles, TechNet, and MSDN pages have been written on each of these subjects. These below sections on SQL Server's suite of tools are focused on data integration problems, with occasional forays into the author's pet peeves around data security. We will, therefore, limit the discussion to key integration technologies and my apologies in advance for merely scratching the surface of these rich and robust environments.

SSIS

SSIS has no core technologies as such; its core is SQL Server itself. One should think of SSIS as a collection of objects that create a powerful visual environment for performing a multitude of tasks associated with master data management, database maintenance, data integration, and ETL projects.

You create SSIS projects in Business Intelligence Development Studio in Microsoft Visual Studio. SSIS...