All medium to large companies have to deal with data being stored in a number of databases, spreadsheets and proprietary applications. Bringing all this data together into one system can be useful to analyzing the business; but can also be quite difficult to do. Integration Services is the next big bet in Microsoft's business intelligence lineup, providing you with true enterprise extract transform and load features (ETL).

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services concentrates on providing you with real world solutions to real world problems, giving you a head start on various projects. If you are only evaluating Integration Services, you'll be able to focus on the early chapters with the option of drilling down into details in the later chapters where some of the more complex concepts will be discussed in detail. The interesting sidebars peppered throughout the book provide insight into the processes, people and decisions that yielded the final IS product.

Kirk Haselden is the Development Manager on the Integration Services team. Kirk has been with Microsoft for 10 years in various groups, including Hardware, eHome, and five years in the SQL Server group developing Integration Services. Kirk is primarily responsible for the design and implementation of the Integration Services runtime. Before Microsoft, Kirk worked for various small to midsized software companies writing educational, dental, and online software.