My TOP-10 features in SSIS 2012

SQLServer Integration Services (SSIS for short) is formally defined as a set of graphical, console utilities and software objects that are designed to extract, transform and consolidate data from heterogeneous sources (MySQL, Oracle, Hadoop, XML, dbf, Excel, ...).
In this article I will list the TOP-10 (from my point of view) utilities that appeared in version 2012.

# 1 Undo / Redo

I understand that this sounds crazy, but until SQL Server 2012, the package designer did not support undo \ redo operation. Imagine if you deleted a whole paragraph in Word and need to type it again.
In SSIS Designer, this was the norm. If the developer has changed the formatting or made changes to the package, there is no way to discard the changes. Moreover, SSIS Designer will automatically save all changes (without any warnings) when you run the package.
SSIS Designer now supports up to 20 undo \ redo operations.

# 2 Configuring and running packages from T-SQL

A set of stored procedures appeared, allowing you to configure and execute packages using T-SQL. Now SSIS is even closer to the database. You can create stored procedures of any complexity. For example, select data from an arbitrary table and transfer it to various packages as parameters.

# 3 Connection Manager

Now you can create a connection for the entire project. Previously, you had to copy the connection from package to package. If you need to change the server name, now you do not need to change all the packages in the project.
In the designer, you can mark the connection as “Work Offline” to simplify debugging packages.
Also for connections, parameters are now supported.
Another gingerbread - you can cache data in memory in the master package and they will be available in all child packages.
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# 4 Parameters and environment

Now there is no need to use configuration files or tables in order to transfer parameters to the package. The developer no longer needs to take care of a group of configuration files that live separately from the packages.

# 5 - Improvements for Flat File Source

Now supported import text files with a variable number of columns.
Also began to correctly import strings of the form 'What''s new in SSIS'.

# 6 - Debugging in Script Component

Real developers do not use debager :)
Script Task and Script Component now support .Net 4.0
There is also the possibility of debugging in Script Component.

# 7 - ODBC support

ODBC is dead ?! ODBC is very much alive!
Microsoft is now equal to ODBC (de facto standard for databases).
For the sake of fairness, I must say that ODBC support through ADO.Net has been before, but the speed of this connection was very low.

# 8 - Reports

Have you ever figured out why the SSIS package crashed with an error or did it take 3 hours instead of 5 minutes? I will tell you a lesson, not a pleasant one, to dig in a text file of logs the size of several megabytes.
Reports have now been added to SISS to track errors or performance issues.

# 9 - Data Taps

Imagine a Data Viewer: which can be added without modifying the package; which can write data to disk, and not just display them on the screen.
Now it is possible to debug SSIS packages in production, even without the right to access the data source.

# 10 - Backup

SSIS 2012 includes the SSISDB database in which the SSISDB directory is stored.
The SSISDB directory serves as a focal point for working with SSIS 2012 projects.
Objects that are stored in the SSISDB directory include projects, packages, settings, environments, and an activity log.
Now it is enough to make the “backup” of the SSISDB database using standard SQL Server tools.
In the previous version of SSIS, packages can also be easily backed up if they are stored in the msdb system database. But the configuration files contained in the packages are stored in the file system. These files are not copied when creating a backup copy of the msdb database.