Understand what a DTS Package is.

1. Describe the components of a package.
2. Use the DTS Package Designer.
3. Learn how to create connections for sources and destinations.
4. Find out how to create tasks.
5. Learn how to define the workflow of a package

Data Transformation Services (DTS) comes installed with Microsoft SQL Server and is tightly integrated with SQL Server (via the Enterprise Manager graphical tool). However, DTS is a separate program that you can use to transfer and transform data from any data source to any data destination. The main unit of work in DTS is the package. The DTS package contains all of the essential ingredients for transforming and copying data, or for performing any function. A package describes all of the steps, tasks, and connections to be used in the work of the package and this makes a package portable. A package can be saved to disk as a file and then transferred to another system for execution, as long as the connection and file location information is still correct, the package can be run from its new location. A package consists of components that delineate the work to be done and each of these components, as well as the package, has a set of properties. These properties define what that component does, and how it fits into the package.

You can execute SSIS packages from the command line (handy when, for example, you are trying to run DTS packages out of a batch file). This option within the SSIS Package Execution Utility is about specifying parameters you would have used if you had run the package from the command line. The utility establishes most of this for you; the option here is just to allow you to perform something of an override on the options used when you tell the utility to execute.