With the changing tide of demands in the business atmosphere of the world, it is no wonder that more and more businesses are opting for faster and better servers to work with because the changing times ask for more storage capacity and more enhanced performance to work with huge amounts of databases. SQL server is one ultimate solution to all your server related problems. More firms are discarding their older server packages and converting to SQL server for a thorough upgrade of their entire database system. The Microsoft Excel Server Integration Services (SSIS) provides significant improvements in both developer as well as administrator experience. The SSIS has been instilled with the latest state of the art features to improve the productivity of the developer, to simplify the processes of management, configuration and deployment as well as meet problems regarding troubleshooting of the SSIS. So if you are seriously considering an upgrade of your server package then you should peruse these tips to make your conversion a much easier and smoother process.

     * Edit Package Configuration and Data Source

    The first step to upgrade your system into SSIS solution Package is to run the SSIS package upgrade wizard. The SSIS package upgrade wizard upgrades the format of the package as well as makes appropriate changes to the properties of the package when you open a pre SQL server package in the SQL server data tools for the first time. However, the wizard does not upgrade certain settings such as connection strings that are pre configured in the package configurations. So after the upgrade, you need to make a few manual changes to the package configuration in order to run the fully upgraded package successfully. So if your pre SQL Server package uses any kind of package configurations, you must remember to manually make some changes to the configuration of the content after the upgrade. This process applies to different types of configurations like the XML configuration files. Connection strings are stored in data source files and require updates. These also need to be updated manually.

     * Project Conversion Wizard to Convert Project Deployment Model

    The SQL server SSIS package supports two types of models 1)The Package Deployment Model 2)Project Deployment Model. The package deployment model is the default deployment model for upgraded packages and was available in previous versions of SSIS as well. The unit of deployment in this model is the package. The project deployment model offers additional package deployment as well as management features such as the integration of services catalog and parameters.

     * When Possible, Convert Package Configuration to Parameter

    Parameters are a new feature in the SQL SSIS server package and acts as a replacement for package configurations. Parameters are used to assign values to package properties be it at run time or design time. The Project Conversion Wizard optionally converts package configurations into parameters. If your package has both parameter values and configuration values then the order of application would be the package values first, followed by the parameter values.

    So both the development and administration experiences will be enhanced by converting to SQL Server.