How can I create a SSIS package for SQL Server 2008 in a SQL Server 2014 environment?

Question

We have SQL Server & SSIS 2014 in our local environment, and most of SQL Server 2014 in our production environment, except for the SSIS, which is still 2008.

So we're creating SSIS packages locally which can't be deployed to production, because the SSIS packages are not backwards-compatible.

Is it possible to create the packages locally to target SSIS 2008? If so, how?

Just to note, the SSIS packages are defined in Visual Studio 2008, so I don't understand why they're dependent on SQL Server 2014.

Answer 1

The format of the SSIS packages has change from SSDT 2012 to 2013/2014. I was facing that situation recently before a Go Live. A colleague had developed SSIS packages in SSDT 2013 with SQL Server 2012 as the target environment for the deployment. While the development and execution from within SSDT 2013 with SQL Server 2012 is no problem, the package is not deployable within the SSIS catalog of SQL Server 2012. SSIS Packages are NOT downward compatible. ...at least with respect to the deployment in the SQL Server SSIS catalogue.

Open the dtsx file in the editor and check the value for "PackageFormatVersion". Possible values are:

• VS 2013/2013 = 8
• VS 2010/2012 = 6

Unfortunately, you cannot open SSIS packages with PackageFormatVersion=8 in SSDT 2012 or lower in order to downgrade a package. You could of course figure out, how the format has changed. I started to do this but gave up after a while. The best possible solution was to redevelop the package in SSDT 2012. Argh!

So, when developing SSIS packages you must take care of the target SQL Server version and then decide to choose the right SSDT version.