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Package Processing With Biml

Ben Weissman gives us a table-driven process for SSIS package creation through Biml:

Now, that we’ve seen multiple ways on how to use Biml to create SSIS packages that will generate and populate tables, we’ll try to bridge the gap on how to use Biml for packages that will execute stored procedures and other tasks for us. We’ll use a metadata-model for that again, though it will be very minimalistic. This approach makes it very easy to maintain – we’re actually using it in exactly this way in multiple projects.

To get started, let’s create a new database “MyBiml_SimplisticMetaData” and create two tables, a view and some sample data in there:

One area in Biml where I’ve had trouble is finding the “right” mix of SQL Server tables, T-SQL operations, and Biml (e.g., building up sets of tables for a warehouse load by storing them in a metadata table or by going through RootNode).  I tend to lean heavily toward this kind of solution, where most of my metadata lives in T-SQL, but when I do that, it always feels like there’s a “purer” way of doing it.  Regardless, one reason I like Biml is that even if I am doing it wrong (for some definition of “doing it wrong”), it’s still a huge time-saver.