SSIS 2012 Design Patterns by Andy Leonard, Matt Masson, Tim Mitchell, Jessica Moss and Michelle Ufford

During my vacations at the end of 2014 I have finally finished a book on “SQL Server 2012 Integration Services Design Patterns”.
This book is written by some of the most respected authors in the SSIS space, such as Andy Leonard or Tim Mitchell between others, and it includes former SQL Server Integration Services Program Manager Matt Masson. Those names from my personal point of view would serve as enough attraction for any ETL professional working with SQL Server SSIS to consider buying & reading this book.

This is a great book with some amazing content on different type of patterns with examples that can serve as a starting point for a lot of different projects.

The very first chapter does a great job of introducing into a nice pattern for organising & running SSIS packages on SSIS Server. In the beginning of 2014, for a client project, I have built a comparable solution and I definitely wish that I would have read this book before, it might have helped me in building my solution.

Of all other chapters, my favourite ones were Parent-Child Patterns, Flat File Patterns as well as the Scripting Patterns & XML Patterns.
Also, the final Appendix A “Evolution of An SSIS Framework” alone might be simply worth the money you will spend on this book. :)

I have enjoyed a lot most of the chapters, while the brevity and abruptness of some of the other chapters left me with a feeling of the lack of cohesiveness.
Some of the Chapters, such as “Expression Language Patterns” are definitely targeted at the very beginners and their inclusion as a pattern is a thing that I do not completely agree.
The same applies to the chapter on Logging – its inclusion would serve as a good introduction into SSIS 2012, but in this book I would hope for inclusion of some awesome patterns, such as “XML Pattern” or “Flat File Pattern” chapters.

I definitely recommend this book to the vast majority of the people working with SSIS, I am confident that you will find a lot of great & useful information in it.