SQL Server

There are several different ways to query a SQL Server from PowerShell but most often you’ll find that they’re dependent on the SQL PowerShell module or snapin. To eliminate that dependency, you can query a SQL Server from PowerShell using the .NET framework. There are several different options to accomplish this including using a DataReader or a DataSet and there are plenty of tutorials on those topics already on the Internet so there’s no reason to duplicate that information here....

The SQL Server 2014 basic management tools have been installed on the Windows 8.1 workstation that’s being used in this blog article. When attempting to import the SQLPS (SQL Server PowerShell) module on your workstation, you’ll be unable to import it and you’ll receive the following error message if the PowerShell script execution policy is set to the default of restricted: Import-Module -Name SQLPS Import-Module : File C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\PowerShell\Modules\SQLPS\Sqlps....

I presented a beginner level session for the PowerShell Virtual Chapter of PASS yesterday titled “PS C:> Get-Started -With ‘PowerShell for SQL Server’”. The session is entry level PowerShell and designed for those people who haven’t yet embraced PowerShell because I often hear “How do I get started with PowerShell”? My new answer: Watch this video. The first two thirds or so of the presentation is more or less generic because the basics for someone who is just getting started with PowerShell are the same regardless of what product you’re using it with....

I recently set out to change the recovery model of a SQL Server database with PowerShell. There seems to be lots of information available on how to accomplish this task with PowerShell through SMO (SQL Server Management Objects) and using T-SQL wrapped inside the Invoke-Sqlcmd cmdlet. I even found lots of information about how to view the recovery model with the PowerShell SQL Server PSProvider, but when it came to actually changing the recovery model via the PSProvider, there was little if any information about how to accomplish that task....

I’m a big believer in trying to write my PowerShell code to what the industry considers to be the best practices as most are common sense anyway, although as one person once told me: “Common sense isn’t all that common anymore”. I would hope that even the most diehard best practices person would realize that if you run into a scenario where following best practices causes the results to be skewed, that at least in that scenario it’s worth taking a step back so you can see the bigger picture....

In my last blog article on Getting Started with Administering and Managing Microsoft SQL Server with PowerShell, I left off by introducing you to how to query information about your SQL Server using PowerShell with SQL Server Management Objects (SMO). In this blog article, I’ll pick up where I left off and write a reusable PowerShell function to return information about SQL Server files and file groups while making the use of SMO transparent to the user of the function....

This past Saturday, I presented a session at PowerShell Saturday 003 in Atlanta. Towards the end of the presentation, I created 290 Active Directory user accounts by using the information for employees contained in the Adventure Works 2012 database. This is actually a PowerShell script that I whipped up Friday night at the hotel after the speaker dinner. I populated some demographic information by joining multiple tables together from that particular database....

I need a few Active Directory users created in my mikefrobbins.com test environment so I thought why come up with fake information when I could use information that I already have in a SQL Server database? The Employees table in the Northwind database looks like an easy enough candidate since all the data I need is in one table. This is about the concept and not about seeing how complicated I can make this process....