Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition 2005 CD/DVD
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) is a tool for developing and running data integration tasks, such as reading from files, transforming data, and loading data into databases, including, but not limited to, Microsoft SQL Server. It is an "ETL" (extract, transform, load) product, very powerful but easy to get lost in the product's documentation and whitepapers trying to figure out how to accomplish a given real-world task. Farmer's little book is a gem because it is short and it makes an effort to help a developer with real-world data integration tasks. This book's main theme is using the scripting facilities, but it does a good job giving a perspective. Donald Farmer is the SSIS program manager at Microsoft, and besides technical knowledge, he has the skills to educate. I have always felt that there are lots of great software products available, but that developers trying to solve problems have a hard time getting past the product demos and slides. This book, in the tradition of K&R's "The C Programming Language" helps developers take that step. In contrast, books that describe step-by-step procedures that are already described in the product documentation are not nearly as useful.
While SSIS has lots of toolboxes to do standard ETL tasks, scripting tasks are meant to add facilities that are awkward or impossible to do with standard designs. Scripting has access to the NET Framework and user-developed NET assemblies. Farmer's examples are helpful and inspiring. I hope he will write more books like this, but at the same time I like to see him, as product manager, take some annoyances and weaknesses out of the otherwise great SSIS product. Those who like to watch instructional videos will enjoy his presentations on MSDN TV.

If you need to get moe out of SSIS 2005 and don't want to waste time re-inventing the wheel; this book is a great help. Examples were very helpful to push the SSIS a bit further.

This is an excellent book. It shows how to unleash the power of SSIS. Script (writing code) is the way to go when you need go beyond the tasks and transformations that are built into SSIS. This book shows how to customize, control, extend and monitor SSIS through code.

One of the best things about the book is that it is only around 200 pages. This book won't put you to sleep with the history of relational databases and ETL or trying to teach you Visual Basic.net. You will appreciate that if you are an experienced database and .net developer. [...]
The author helped to develop the product and is thoroughly knowledgeable about the subject. He is active in the Integration Services support forums.

There are some typos but they are easy to spot and do not cloud the information. I highly recommend this book.

This is an excellent book. It shows how to unleash the power of SSIS. Script (writing code) is the way to go when you need go beyond the tasks and transformations that are built into SSIS. This book shows how to customize, control, extend and monitor SSIS through code.

One of the best things about the book is that it is only around 200 pages. This book won't put you to sleep with the history of relational databases and ETL or trying to teach you Visual Basic.net. You will appreciate that if you are an experienced database and .net developer. [...]
The author helped to develop the product and is thoroughly knowledgeable about the subject. He is active in the Integration Services support forums.

There are some typos but they are easy to spot and do not cloud the information. I highly recommend this book.