Business Intelligence Markup Language (Biml) is a SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) design patterns engine.
A Story of Productivity
A while back I was contacted by a client experiencing a familiar issue. The Production SQL Server instance was experiencing performance issues due to conflicts between customers and enterprise reporting needs. They contacted a friend who contacted me. When we spoke they asked, “Can you help?” “Yes,” I replied, “I can help.”
We scheduled a three-day visit. On Day 1 I installed a Linchpin People SSIS Framework and gathered information about the Production databases. The Framework facilitates execution and logging and supports my preference of building a single SSIS package per table. I counted over 700 tables in over 30 databases. I determined an incremental load pattern would serve the customer best for their largest and most active tables. For the smaller tables, a truncate-and-load – whack ‘n’ load – pattern would suffice.
I fired up Mist, the Biml development environment from Varigence, and started customizing our version of a staging application.
I need to pause here and let you know that it takes me about an hour to build and test a typical truncate-and-load SSIS package, and two hours to build and test a typical incremental load SSIS package. I was looking at roughly 4.5 months of work with these tables.
I spent Days 2 and 3 building and deploying SSIS packages using Mist. In the 16 hours that comprised these days, I completed building over 700 SSIS packages, loaded the Framework execution metadata (I used Biml to auto-generate approximately 25,000 lines of T-SQL at approximately 2,000 lines of code per second…), and performed a test load of Production data to the new enterprise reporting instance of SQL Server. When I ran the numbers, I did not do the work of 100 SSIS developers.
Only 50.
You can do this, too.
How?
Biml and Mist are the secrets to my productivity. I not only drastically cut development time and effort, I improved code quality. SSIS packages are generated from tried-and-true templates. If one executes my tests successfully, then all the SSIS packages will execute my tests successfully.
Learn Biml NOW!
Would you like to multiply your SSIS productivity while improving code quality? Tim Mitchell and Reeves Smith are delivering an excellent one-day workshop titled Getting Started With Biml 5 Dec 2014 in Vienna, Virginia. The cost for this event is only $129.
Details:
For ETL developers, Biml (Business Intelligence Markup Language) is a game changer. This is a great new tool for Microsoft business intelligence developers who want to make the most of their development efforts. In short, it’s an XML-based language that will allow you to programmatically create SSIS packages. Even better, it can be enhanced with VB.NET or C# scripting to create BimlScript, which allows you to dynamically build and modify a few, dozens, or even hundreds of packages with minimal effort. Best of all, you don’t need budget approval – if you already have Visual Studio, you can use Biml and BimlScript for free!
In this full-day presentation, we’ll introduce you to dynamic package generation through Biml. Business intelligence consultants Tim Mitchell and Reeves Smith will walk you through the essentials of Biml – getting started, syntax, and common uses – followed by dozens of design patterns to improve your efficiency as an ETL developer.
Among the topics that we’ll cover:
- Overview of Biml – What is it? Where do I use it?
- Introduction to Biml syntax
- Biml in the Visual Studio environment
- Introduction to BimlScript syntax
- Dynamic package generation with BimlScript
- Metadata management with Biml
- Create a simple staging package project with dozens of packages in less than an hour
- Package (re)generation
- Source control
- Common design patterns for Biml in the enterprise
- Taking Biml to the next level with Mist
By the end of this full-day presentation, you should be equipped to get started immediately using Biml. It’s a revolutionary technology, and we hope that you’ll be as excited about Biml as we are.
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