SSIS Vs Talend Open Studio

From an initial evaluation of Talend Open Studio, open source ETL tools and comparison with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) here are few quick points that were observed.

Talend Open Studio is an Open Source ETL Tool. The Tool is based off of Java and Perl. The tool presents us with wide range of ETL elements like

1. Data connectivity (supports wide range of data connectivity from mySQL to Teradata supports all the widely used ODBC drivers) while SSIS has a generic ODBC connection manager, using which one can connect to data sources.
   
2. Supports Java/Perl scripts while SSIS supports Microsoft VB .NET / C# scripts (with SQL 2008).
   
3. Developer support from the Talend Forums and Tool Documentation while SSIS comes with MSDN Books Online, hands on labs, screen casts and webcasts, as well as TechNet forums from Microsoft.
   

Coming to the various components/elements of the tool here's a very high level overview,

Microsoft SSIS	Elements
Control Flow
	Containers:- For Each Loop, For Loop, Sequence Containers, etc.
	Tasks:- Execute SQL Task, Execute Package Task, Data Flow Task, Script Task, etc
Data Flow
	Source:- ODBC, Excel, Flat Files, XML, etc
	Transformations:- Aggregate, Sort, Lookup, Slowly Changing Dimension Fuzzy lookup fuzzy grouping, etc.
	Destinations:- ODBC, Excel, Flat Files, XML, etc
Event Handlers	Error Handling and Logging Mechanisms:- Event Logging, Checkpoints, Error Handling
Variables	Global and local scoped variables
Configuration Files

Talend OpenStudio	Tasks/Elements
Business Intelligence components	Supports Slowly Changing Dimensions, Supports MDX queries
Business Components	Supports Microsoft AX
Custom Code	Allows Custom Java code (like Script Task/Script Components in SSIS)
Data Quality	Adding Surrogate Keys, Lookup (Fuzzy, Inteval)
Database Component	Similar to DataFlow Container, Inputs, Outputs
Database Utilities Components	Create Tables, ParseRecordset
ELT Component	Aggregates, Filter rows/columns
File Component	All File Operations
Internet Component	FTP, RSS, Mails, Mom, Web services, Sockets, XML RPC, Files
Logs & Errors Components	Error Handlers and loggers, Job Kill,
Misc Group Components	Miscellaneous Components
Orchestration Components	Job Sequencing
Processing Components	Aggregations, Mapping, Transformations, Filtering, Denormalizations
System Components	Operating System level tasks
XML Components	All XML operations
Variables	Supports creations and usage of variables

Conclusion

In overall perspective, we save on licensing cost associated with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services over Talend Open Studio, but we lose out on several other aspects like,

• Unified BI toolset offered from Microsoft in the form of MS BI toolset which includes Integration Services, Reporting Services, and Analysis Services when purchasing a single license of Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008.
  
• Developer support from online communities for MS BI.
  
• Online Trainings in the form of Webcasts/ Virtual Labs/ Hands on labs etc.