Koen Verbeeck contrasts SQL Server Integration Services with Pentaho Data Integration:
For generating SSIS packages, you need to rely on Biml (much about that can be found on this blog or on the net), or older frameworks such as ezApi. Or you need 3rd party tools such as BimlStudio or TimeXtender. Using Biml means writing XML and .NET. Don’t get me wrong, I love Biml and I use it a lot in my SSIS projects.
But generating transformations in PDI is so much easier. First, you create a template (you create a transformation, but you leave certain fields empty, such as the source SQL statement and the destination table). Then you have another transformation reading metadata. This metadata is pushed to the template using the Metadata Injection Transformation. In this transformation, you point to the template and you map those empty fields to your metadata fields.
It’s interesting to see where each product stands out or falls flat compared to the other, and Koen’s comparison is definitely not a one-sided bout.