The title should actually read “8 Random Ways to Optimise SSIS”.

One of the recent project I have been working on involved building a distributed (scaled-out) SSIS environment, this means multiple VMs with a standalone SSIS (2012 in Package mode) instances installed (so no SQL Server Database Engine), all pushing massive amount of data to a staging database.

I have been brought in on this project to suggest a few techniques to improve the performance of the scaled-out SSIS environment, by basically increasing the throughput to the staging database, below I discuss some of the general approaches I have taken to achieve that goal. Some of the advice might be a bit random, and others might not be pertinent to your particular situation, but over-all you should find a gem or two on optimising SSIS  performance in there somewhere!

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The SSIS 2012 Catalog integration with SQL Server comes with the advantage of being able to execute SSIS packages indigenously from within T-SQL, along with a host of other functionality including improved monitoring and logging, integrated security and obviously the new deployment model.

Executing SSIS packages by calling a stored procedure can be handy in many situations, but also comes with some (albeit minor) stipulations and quirks, this post tries to go through some of the basics of executing SSIS packages through stored procedures, while also touching lightly on some of the issues I encountered while having a go at this new SSIS execution method.

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