Package Versioning

DTS Designer maintains version information about each saved package, and this information can be stored in Microsoft® Repository. Version information for each package includes:

• A package GUID, a globally unique identifier (GUID) that identifies the package.
• A version GUID, a globally unique identifier (GUID) that identifies the package version.

When a package is first created, the package GUID and version GUID are the same, and there is only one version. If changes made to a package are saved, the package is versioned, and the new version is assigned a different version GUID than that of the previous saved version. Rather than the last version overwriting the previous one (as in a normal save operation), each package version is preserved.

When you save a package to Repository, version information can be linked to saved metadata by using the scanning options. In addition, data lineage information can be saved for a package. These features let you track:

• Changes to the package metadata, such as changes to table columns and keys (displayed in the DTS Repository metadata browser in SQL Server Enterprise Manager), across package versions.
• Which package version produced a particular set of transformations. To do this, use the DTS Repository lineage lookup feature in SQL Server Enterprise Manager.