A package is a collection of connections, control flow elements, data flow elements, event handlers, variables, and configurations that represents a unit of work. You can create a package with SQL Server Integration Services graphical design tools or build it programmatically. You can save a package to Microsoft SQL Server, the SQL Server Integration Services Package Store, or a package file.

You can create one resource to extract metadata from one or multiple packages. All packages in a resource must be in the same repository or must be in package files in the same directory. If you create a resource from multiple repository packages, and the packages are encrypted with a password, the packages must use the same password.