Monday, January 25, 2010

Upgrade Reality

I was back on Windows again today, working on some updates for the nine year old MS SQL Server 2000 based system. A SQL Server upgrade is being considered - to the 2005, not 2008, edition if you can believe it. Regardless, as usual it was left to me to point out the problems. (Why I'm always the one giving the bad news, I'll never know.)

The system makes extensive use of Data Transformation Services (DTS) packages. (I so regret not fighting harder against using this abomination nine years ago.) In the 2005 edition, DTS has been replaced with a new thing called SQL Server Integration Services (longer name, must be better, right? ^^) so you have to convert your packages. Your old DTS packages still work but the DTS design tool is no longer included and has to be installed separately. In case you missed the hint, Microsoft doesn't want you to use DTS any more.

It looks like enough effort that I would rewrite the DTS packages in a real programming language like Python. Of course, "rewriting" sounds worse to non-technical people so the upgrade is on hold while everyone ponders the predicament we've gotten ourselves into.

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