I saw some recent email about SSIS and SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence Edition. I thought I would share what I have learned.
It is very easy to misinterpret what one sees in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT – the new BIDS). When you open SSDT all SSIS components are available, whether or not those components are allowed in your edition of SQL Server. In addition, SSDT will allow you to use and execute these components in the SSDT Environment at design time.
SSIS 2012 BI Edition is Not SSIS 2012 Enterprise
You can build and test an SSIS package using Enterprise-Edition-only components, but you cannot execute this package outside the SSDT environment. Here’s a screenshot of a BI Edition toolbox:
Note the Enterprise Edition-only components: Fuzzy Grouping, Fuzzy Lookup, etc. Take a look at what happens when I execute a Data Flow Task that contains a Fuzzy Lookup Transformation in BI Edition:
Now take a look at what happens when I execute that same package using DtExec on the same virtual machine:
Ugliness. And confusion.
Andy
Very clever way to get you to upgrade … Hey look at these fancy tools .. they WORK .. oh you want to use them? .. no no ..
Thats very useful information Andy. Its very possible that considerable time could be spent developing ETL packages that then have to be unpicked. Not good for project managers or the individual coders.
I understand from some of the recent blogs & tips about SSDT, that there is a favourites folder. Are there additional user manageable folders at our disposal?
Is it feasible to create site specific menu templates that suppress those components that aren’t permitted for that site?
Similar to the approach with the Developer edition I guess. Although you would have thought this wouldn’t propagate to full licensed editions.
Frustrating!
There should be an option, in the project setting, to define which platform you are developing to, and then the build should fail, when you are using parts which do not qualify.
This issue exists in the analysis services projects in BIDS 2008 and 2005, because you can build a cube, that uses semi additive measure etc, which are not allowed on a standard edition. To solve the problem, the SSAS project in bids have a platform setting, standard or enterprise, and when you pick standard, it will not late you build, if you are using non standard edition features.
I can see that the same solution is also used for SSAS projects, in visual studio 10, aka SSDT, so why they didn’t do that for the SSIS projects, that is the big question.
\Rafi