Definitely OT, but I do have an amusing DTS anecdote (it doesn't really consel specifically for Perl, but it's amusing nonetheless): one solution provider for our company had set up a database on a server kept in-house (with nothing else other than their software on it, fortunately). They created a DTS package to import data from our database each EOD.

Getting this vendor to do anything reasonable was difficult, but eventually we settled on a file format to pass to them and we passed it nightly.

For some reason, after a few weeks the server died. Wouldn't reboot, nothing, and we had to reinstall the OS. The server admins had no idea what happened, and chalked it up to chance.

That is, until it happened again after another few weeks. They replaced the server, agreeing with the vendor to chalk it up to a bad server.

Well, until it happened again a few weeks later, to the new server. Given the vendor's technical "expertise" evident in meetings, the server admins were getting suspicious (one might say they were a bit slow to get suspicious, actually). The put a monitor on the server -- and found that when the DTS package ran, somehow all the files in the Windows folder were being deleted and replaced a short time later. Examining the DTS package showed that they were using a DOS shell command to delete the import file (which they'd decided should go into the Windows folder) after processing. However, instead of using a command specific to the file, they were deleting everything. The OS would then replace the files automatically. At least, it would until it got fed up after several weeks of doing this daily.

Yes, the company (which I'm no longer working for) is still using the vendor. The vendor is extremely well-known in their field, and basically has no competition.

As for the question, I don't know enough about DTS packages, but I'd be surprised if there were anything particular they could do which Perl couldn't. It might be more a question of how convenient it is to do using Perl or DTS.

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