.Net vs SSIS: What should SSIS be used for?

Question

If I have the option of using .Net and can do data transformations just fine in .Net, when would I need SSIS? Is there a certain task

Answer 1

My arguments for not using SSIS are:

• Design greenfield products so that they have RESTful data feeds for reporting and extraction built-in to the project plan and budget, preferably to a standard like OData so that other tools can plug right in.

• Data feeds should pull and transform from upstream systems and feeds on demand; such that schedule tasks, configuration of scheduled tasks, task runner VMs and staff to run all this unreliable scheduling stuff is negated.

• RESTful data feeds leverage HTTP caching.

• Feeds/services/APIs can be moved to elastic-scale cloud easily.

• SSIS requires finding people with SSIS skills that enjoy doing that stuff for weeks. In my experience, finding and retaining SSIS developers is hard and expensive and the people found tend to be sub-par.

• SSIS doesn't work well with source control and collaborative work.

• SSIS doesn't lend itself well to code reuse, unlike microservices and traditional code libraries.

• SSIS doesn't version easily, unlike a REST service.

• SSIS doesn't lend itself to modular designs and continuous deployment of many small changes, it tends to be large-batch with scary releases.

• SSIS promotes the use of stored-procedures which places a lot of demand on SQL which is the hot-spot. Favour designs that place demands on a scaleable, stateless middle tier.

• The tooling is clunky and unreliable.

• You're at the mercy of Microsoft's roadmap for SSIS.

• Consider writing to tables/services that support analysis, reporting and views as soon as the data comes into the application; see Event Sourcing and other application architecture patterns.

• Never use Excel as a data source; train employees.

• Code is king.

Ultimately, I see SSIS as a relic of Enterprise IT. I like to ask, "Would Google use SSIS?" How else can the problem be solved? Think outside the box.