How to compare DTSs in SQL Server 2005

Question

Once your databases are converted from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005, is there any way to compare DTSs on two servers to see if they are still essentially the same? I need to see if my dev and prod are the same, and comparing them manually is really time consuming.

If they were still in 2000, I could use the Red-Gate tool DTS Compare, but that doesn't work in 2005. I can save each as a Visual Basic file, and then compare those (and that kind of works), but the steps may be output in a different order. Is there something out there that is better?

Answer 1

I would say, don't use DTS jobs in SQL Server 2005. There are a complete new and reworked method to do those things: SSIS.

Here you find an introduction: http://www.accelebrate.com/sql_training/ssis_tutorial.htm

Yes, maybe you can't compare it perfectly, but DTS Jobs are run out of support since SQL 2005 (remember, we are in 2009 :) )

Answer 2

SSIS is just an XML file. how about using one of the many XML file comparisons tools out there? could that give you what you're looking for? (its not a plain text comparison... they would you to ignore the order of the nodes, which is not relevant in XML)

---

Nob Hill Software - Database tools.