Stumbled across this post while searching for custom tasks. (I found your other post, but alas, no code - I’m compiling a directory of open-source tasks and components).

I wanted to bring to your attention an open-source alternative to the MS SCD transformation that performs well (for me) for (what I think are) larger data sets. Of course, I’m biased, ’cause I wrote it.

Head over to http://www.codeplex.com/ssisctc for that and other open (and semi-open) source tasks and components for SSIS.

I once had a similar problem to solve. I had just developed my first dimensional model and loved the way the Date Dimension worked. When I started programming again in our OLTP environment I noticed that to get the same functionality on reports, screens, and in queries, my users and developers were using date and time functions. All we stored in the database was a datetime stamp or just simply a date value as in 12/15/2007.

To make matters more complex, we had some mySQL and SQL Server Databases together with Visual FoxPro — all of which had subtle differences in the way they handle dates.

I solved the problem by introducing a Date Dimension (an exact replica of the one in the data warehouse) into the OLTP systems. So in the end, 4 OLTP systems and the data warehouse all shared the same Date Dimension. For distribution reasons, a copy of the date dimension was shipped with the product, while the master copy was maintained in the ETL environment.

The only other change I ended up making was to use the ISO date as an integer in my OLTP systems instead of using the database’s date or datetime data type. This allowed for a much more consistent way of accessing the date dimension in the different environments. It was a lot of work to make this change, though… a bit painful at times! But it was well worth it. Now, all dates in all systems are stored as an integer like 20071215.

So, to answer your question, I think its a great idea!