Troubleshooting

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Enhanced Connector Enhanced connectors add extended capabilities and require a separate entitlement in addition to your Alation platform license.

This section provides solutions for common issues you may encounter during the configuration and use of the Microsoft SSIS OCF Connector.

Connection Test Fails

If the Test button in the connection settings returns an error, review the following common causes:

  • Incorrect JDBC string: Ensure the hostname/IP address and port in the connection string are correct and that the SQL Server instance is accessible from the Alation server or Alation Agent.

  • Authentication failure: For NTLM, double-check that the username, password, and domain name are all correct. For Kerberos, ensure you have uploaded a valid krb5.conf file.

  • Firewall issues: A firewall may be blocking the connection between the Alation server and the SQL Server port (typically 1433).

  • SSL/TLS errors: If Enable SSL/TLS is on, ensure you have uploaded the correct SSL certificate. If you’re using a self-signed certificate, you may need to use the Disable Certificate Verification option.

MDE Fails or No Packages Appear

If Test access and fetch schemas fails, or succeeds but no packages appear in the selection list, check the following:

  • Insufficient permissions: The most common cause. The Windows service account requires the ssis_admin and ssis_logreader roles on SSISDB. Without these, the connector cannot read the deployed projects and packages. See Prerequisites.

  • Incorrect deployment model: The connector can only see packages deployed to the SSIS Catalog using the Project Deployment Model. It cannot access packages stored as individual .dtsx files on a file system.

  • Empty SSIS Catalog: Verify that the target SSIS Catalog (SSISDB) actually contains deployed projects and packages.

Cross-Source Lineage Is Missing

If you expect to see lineage connecting to your SQL Server or Oracle tables but it does not appear, review these points:

  • Prerequisite MDE not run: The Alation connector for the source or destination data source (for example, the SQL Server connector) must run MDE before the SSIS connector’s MDE. If the source or destination tables aren’t already in the catalog, the SSIS connector has nothing to link to.

  • Incorrect automated lineage setup (SQL Server): Ensure the Additional data source connections field on your SQL Server connector is configured with the correct hostname~|~catalog:-1 alias, and that the hostname exactly matches the Data Source property in the CONNECTION STRING of the SSIS component. This configuration must be saved before running the final SSIS MDE; if you added the alias afterward, run SSIS MDE again.

  • Incorrect manual lineage setup: Verify that the Alation Data Source ID or host:port pair entered in the manual configuration section is correct. Remember that this setting applies to all packages in the data source — if a package uses a different source or destination than the one manually configured, its lineage is not created. See Configure Cross-Source Lineage for the workaround using multiple data sources.

Lineage Stops at a Variable or Task

The lineage you see reflects the package’s design, not a live execution. If the connection between two components depends entirely on a variable populated at runtime, the lineage may appear to be broken at that point. This is expected: the connector performs static analysis and correctly shows the static data paths visible in the package’s design. See Overview for more on how variable lineage is modeled.

Control Flow Sequencing Is Not Shown

The connector displays data lineage, not workflow orchestration. The sequence of events and conditional logic defined by Precedence Constraints in the Control Flow are not represented in Alation. For example, the catalog does not show that one task runs only after another succeeds. This is expected behavior — the connector’s purpose is to catalog the journey of the data, not to replicate the package’s execution logic.