Warn (or fail) if a package is run without having overriden every pkg connectionstring with a config file entry - ssis

Question

It seems like a very common issue with SSIS packages is releasing a package to Production that ends up with running the wrong connectionstring parameters. This could happen by making any one of many mistakes or ommisions. As a result, I find it helpful to dump all ConnectionString values to a log file. This helps me understand what connectionstrings were actually applied to the package at run time.
Now, I am considering having my packages check to see if every connnection object in my package had its connectionstring overriden by an entry in the config file and if not, return a warning or even fail the package. This is to allow easier configuration by extracting all environment variables to a config file. If a connectionstring is never overridden, this risks that a package, when run in production, may use development settings or a package, when run in a non production setting when testing, may accidentily be run against production.
I'd like to borrow from anyone who may have tried to do this. I'd also be interested in suggestions on how to accomplish this with minimal work.
Thx

Answer 1

Technical question 1 - what are my connection string
This is an easy question to answer. In your package, add a Script Task and enumerate through the Connections collection. I fire the OnInformation event and if I had this scheduled, I'd be sure to have the /rep iew options in my dtexec to ensure I record Information, Errors and Warnings.
namespace TurnDownForWhat
{
using System;
using System.Data;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime;
using System.Windows.Forms;
/// <summary>
/// ScriptMain is the entry point class of the script. Do not change the name, attributes,
/// or parent of this class.
/// </summary>
[Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Tasks.ScriptTask.SSISScriptTaskEntryPointAttribute]
public partial class ScriptMain : Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Tasks.ScriptTask.VSTARTScriptObjectModelBase
{
public void Main()
{
bool fireAgain = false;
foreach (var item in Dts.Connections)
{
Dts.Events.FireInformation(0, "SCR Enumerate Connections", string.Format("{0}->{1}", item.Name, item.ConnectionString), string.Empty, 0, ref fireAgain);
}
Dts.TaskResult = (int)ScriptResults.Success;
}
enum ScriptResults
{
Success = Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.DTSExecResult.Success,
Failure = Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.DTSExecResult.Failure
};
}
}
Running that on my package, I can see I had two Connection managers, CM_FF and CM_OLE along with their connection strings.
Information: 0x0 at SCR Enum, SCR Enumerate Connections: CM_FF->C:\ssisdata\dba_72929.csv
Information: 0x0 at SCR Enum, SCR Enumerate Connections: CM_OLE->Data Source=localhost\dev2012;Initial Catalog=tempdb;Provider=SQLNCLI11;Integrated Security=SSPI;
Add that to ... your OnPreExecute event for all the packages and no one sees it but every reports back.
Technical question 2 - Missed configurations
I'm not aware of anything that will allow a package to know it's under configuration. I'm sure there's an event as you will see in your Information/Warning messages that a package attempted to apply a configuration, didn't find one and is going to retain it's design time value. Information - I'm configuring X via Y. Warning - tried to configure X but didn't find Y. But how to have a package inspect itself to find that out, I have no idea.
That said, I've seen reference to a property that fails package on missed configuration. I'm not seeing it now, but I'm certain it exists in some crevice. You can supply the /w parameter to dtexec which treats warnings as errors and really, warnings are just errors that haven't grown up yet.
Unspoken issue 1 - Permissions
I had a friend who botched an XML config file as part of their production deploy. Their production server started consuming data from a dev server. Bad things happened. It sounds like you have had a similar situation. The resolution is easy, insulate your environments. Are you using the same service account for your production class SQL Server boxes and dev/test/uat/qa/load/etc? STOP. Make a new one. Don't allow prod to talk to any boxes that aren't in their tier of service. Someone bones a package and doesn't set a configuration? First of all, you'll catch it when it goes from dev to something-before-production because that tier wouldn't be able to talk to anything else that's not that level. But if you're in the ultra cheap shop and you've only got dev and prod, so be it. Non-configured package goes to prod. Prod SQL Agent fires off the package. Package uses default connection manager and fails validation because it can't talk to the dev sales database.
Unspoken issue 2 - template
What's your process when you have a new package to build? Does your team really start from scratch? There are so many ways to solve this problem but the core concept is to define your best practices for Configuration, Logging, Package Protection Level, Transaction levels, etc into some easily consumable form. Maybe that's 3 starter packages: one for raw acquisition, maybe one stages and conforms the data and the last one moves data from conformed into the final destination. Teammates then simply have to pick one to start from and fill in the spots that need it. If they choose to do their own thing, that's the stick you beat them with when their package fails to run in production because they didn't follow the standard path.
There are other approaches here. If you're a strong .NET crew, you can gen your template packages that way. At this point, I create my templates with Biml and use that to drive basic package creation.

Answer 2

If I am understanding you correctly the below solution should work.
My suggestion to you is to turn on the Do not save sensitive option for the ProtectionLevel property at the top level of the package.
This will require you to use package configurations for every connection, otherwise it will not have the credentials to make a connection.