Master Data Services does not include the functionality to import data itself. This can be carried out using another component of SQL Server: SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). SSIS is an enterprise-level extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool that compliments MDS well. There are many books and a huge amount of information already available about SSIS, so we won't be covering any "how-to" information on the product itself. Instead, we will look at the process of building a package to load data into MDS and invoke the staging and validation processes. The exercise assumes you are competent in building basic SSIS packages.

The package will essentially follow the process we have already discussed in detail in this chapter— automating the SQL scripts already developed. As we have already loaded the new stores from the UK in our example, this time we will add new acquisitions from France into the store entity, and update the City (domain) and PostalCode...