Connecting to the Integration Services service on the computer “SSISServerName” failed with the following error: “Class not registered”.

This error can occur when you try to connect to a SQL Server 2005 Integration Services service from the current version of the SQL Server tools. Instead, add folders to the service configuration file to let the local Integration Services service manage packages on the SQL Server 2005 instance.

Not to worry, there is a workaround. It’s not the most logical workaround, but it will work. The SSIS service has a concept of “folders.” Read on for more details.

You see them when you connect to an SSIS instance through SSMS:

We can add additional folders that connect to remote instances (yes, even pre-SQL 2012 instances) by editing the MsDtsSrvr.ini.xml file on a SQL 2012 instance (perhaps your local machine) and restarting the SSIS service on the same machine. Here’s how.

• Open the MsDtsSrvr.ini.xml file. It is typically located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DTS\Binn\MsDtsSrvr.ini.xml.
• Add a folder to the TopLevelFolders node. This folder should be configured to point to your remote non-SQL 2012 SSIS instance.
• Restart the SSIS service.

An example XML file that adds a new folder that points to the named SQL instance, MyServer\SQL01 will look like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<DtsServiceConfiguration xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <StopExecutingPackagesOnShutdown>true</StopExecutingPackagesOnShutdown>
   <TopLevelFolders>
      <Folder xsi:type="SqlServerFolder">
         <Name>MSDB</Name>
         <ServerName>.\SQL2012</ServerName>
      </Folder>
      <Folder xsi:type="FileSystemFolder">
         <Name>File System</Name>
         <StorePath>..\Packages</StorePath>
      </Folder>
      <Folder xsi:type="SqlServerFolder">
         <Name>MyServerFolder</Name>
         <ServerName>MyServer\SQL01</ServerName>
      </Folder>
   </TopLevelFolders>
</DtsServiceConfiguration>

Once the folder entry for “MyServerFolder” has been added, save the file, and then restart the SSIS Service via the Services Control Panel or via the SQL Server Configuration Manager.

Then connect to your local SSIS service in SSMS to see the new folder. It should look as so:

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

This book was written by former MVP turned Microsoft employee Ross Mistry and current MVP Stacia Misner. Enjoy!

Basically,
SELECT CAST(protocol_version as BINARY(4))
FROM sys.dm_exec_connections
will tell you which version is connecting to your instance based on the TDS protocol appendix document, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd339982(PROT.13).aspx.

SQL Server 2012 is almost complete, and we now know that the TDS protocol version for this will be 0×74000004.

Another option appears to be to use the client_version column in sys.dm_exec_sessions. A client_version = 4 is SQL Server 2000. 5 = SQL Server 2005. 6 = SQL Server 2008. 7 = SQL Server 2012.

Please register if you plan on attending so that the hosts can arrange enough food as well as to ensure you get registered for SWAG!

http://omahamtg.com/Events.aspx?ID=142

When creating environments in the new SSIS catalog, you are able to define environment variables. When creating string variables, you are limited to a string length of 4,000 characters. If you exceed 4,000 characters, you will receive an error. Details below.

Environment variables can be created by right-clicking on the environment in question and selecting “Properties.”

In the properties window, select “Variables” so that you can add new variables.

As long as you stay within the 4,000 character limit, you’ll be fine. If you exceed that limit, expect an error message as below:

Clicking on the error message in the highlighted progress window, you can see the full details:

Yep, internally, the SSIS team uses the sql_variant data type, which cannot store an NVARCHAR(MAX) column. Since our string is longer than 4,000 characters (the max limit for NVARCHAR), the data type of the data we are sending must be converted to an NVARCHAR(MAX) which is an incompatible type for sql_variant.

The SSIS team is aware of this and hopefully they’ll be putting in a limit to prevent users from entering anything more than 4,000 characters to prevent the error from happening in the first place, or at least raising awareness of the limitation.

Also of a somewhat unrelated note – if you choose to set a variable to “sensitive” once you save it to the database by clicking the OK button, you will not be able to retrieve its value from within the GUI. Just beware. Treat the sensitive property as if you were working with passwords (which may be a common use of this property anyhow).

I will be presenting on two topics: SSIS changes in Denali, and Using Event Notifications for Monitoring SQL Instances.

The first session, SSIS Changes in Denali, is pretty self-explanatory. Expect that I will go through each of the major changes in demo form, with some discussions around each.

The second session around Event Notifications, will be quite a bit more advanced and will talk about using the Event Notifications infrastructure in SQL Server combined with Service Broker to implement a very robust monitoring system. This infrastructure allows for capturing all kinds of audit information such as creating a table, dropping an index, rebuilding statistics, blocking, deadlocks, etc… There’s quite a bit of information that can be captured. I will show how to set this up and how to consume the information for monitoring purposes.

Don’t miss your chance at seeing me speak (!) and most importantly don’t miss your chance at learning SQL Server topics for free. See you there!

An event flyer can be found here: http://www.ssistalk.com/Flyer_updated.pdf Please distribute as you see fit!

We have the call for speakers open right now. If you would like to speak and would like to know more information, please contact me (using the Contact link at the top of the page) or submit your details online and let us know you’d like some more information.

For more details, visit http://www.sqlsaturday.com/91/eventhome.aspx.

Read the announcement here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2011/07/11/sql-server-code-name-denali-ctp3-is-here.aspx

The SQL Error Log does not help much at all. Here’s what’s in the SQL Error log:
2011-05-06 09:06:17.28 Logon Error: 18456, Severity: 14, State: 38.
2011-05-06 09:06:17.28 Logon Login failed for user ‘DOMAIN\ssrs.service’. Reason: Failed to open the explicitly specified database. [CLIENT: 192.168.0.147]

The Windows Application log is not much help either.
Login failed for user ‘DOMAIN\ssrs.service’. Reason: Failed to open the explicitly specified database. [CLIENT: 192.168.0.147]

In other words, useless for troubleshooting. The way to obtain the database name the client is trying to connect to is to use SQL Server Profiler.

To set up SQL Server Profiler, connect to the SQL instance where the error is occuring and then track the following events:
Errors and Warnings: User Error Message
Security Audit: Audit Login Failed

For these two events, make sure you capture at least the following columns: ApplicationName, HostName, LoginName, SPID (required), StartTime, TextData (where the message text will be), Severity, State, ClientProcessID, and Error.

Then run the trace. You’ll see the following data under the “User Error Message” event when the login failure occurs:
Cannot open database “DatabaseName” requested by the login. The login failed.
For the “Audit Login Failed” event you’ll see the following data:
Login failed for user ‘BLUENE\ssrs.service’. Reason: Failed to open the explicitly specified database. [CLIENT: 192.168.0.147]

Using this information (and the rest of the info in the other columns you selected), you should be able to go to the source and identify which process is trying to connect to the specified database and take appropriate action.

If you’re interested in the other states that error 18456 can generate, please visit fellow MVP Aaron Bertrand’s page on this topic for a very nice listing.

Attached is the SQL Profiler Trace Template for SQL 2008 instances if you want to import it instead of manually configuring SQL Profiler. To import the template, in SQL Server Profiler, go to File->Templates and select Import…

SQL_Login_Failures_Profiler_Template.tdf (860 bytes)