I recently saw a blog article on How to Identify Process ID for SQL Server Services? – Interview Question of the Week #185 written by Pinal Dave. While his answer is simple with TSQL, what if you're not a SQL guy? You can also retrieve this information with PowerShell from Windows itself. When it comes to retrieving …

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One of the ways I practice the principal of least privilege is by logging into my computer as a domain user who is also a standard local user. I typically run PowerShell as a domain user who is a local admin and elevate on a per command basis using a domain account with more access only when absolutely necessary. The …

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Recently, a fellow IT Pro contacted me and stated they were unable to login to one of their SQL Servers using Windows Authentication. The following error was generated when attempting to login to SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Their exact words were "I think we have a permissions problem". Clicking on …

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The new PowerShell cmdlets that are part of the SQLServer PowerShell module that's distributed as part of SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) 2016 make it super easy to write the output of PowerShell commands to a SQL Server database. The ActiveDirectory PowerShell module that's part of the RSAT (Remote Server …

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This blog article will demonstrate how to write a GUI on top of your existing PowerShell functions using SAPIEN PowerShell Studio 2016. I've previously written a couple of functions for managing SQL Server agent jobs. These two functions, Get-MrSqlAgentJobStatus and Start-MrSqlAgentJob can be found in my SQL repository …

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My previous blog article demonstrated how to start a SQL agent job using the .NET Framework from PowerShell to eliminate the dependency of needing the SQL Server PowerShell module or snap-in on the machine where the command is being run from. There's not much use of blindly starting a SQL agent job without being able …

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As of this writing, the most recent version of the SQLServer PowerShell module (which installs as part of SQL Server Management Studio) includes cmdlets for retrieving information about SQL agent jobs, but no cmdlets for starting them. 1Get-Command -Module SQLServer -Name job I recently ran into a situation where I …

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I recently presented a session on "Automate Operational Readiness and Validation Testing of SQL Server with PowerShell and Pester" for the PowerShell Virtual Chapter of SQL PASS. The video from that presentation is now available: Both the code and slide deck from the presentation can be found in my …

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In my blog article from last week, I demonstrated using several older open source PowerShell functions to store the environmental portion of the code from operational validation tests in a SQL Server database and then later retrieve it and re-hydrate it back into a PowerShell hash table. Earlier this week, a new …

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Last week, on Wednesday (April 6th, 2016), I presented a session at the PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit 2016 on "Building Unconventional SQL Server Tools in PowerShell with Functions and Script Modules". The video from that presentation is now available: Here's the abstract or synopsis for this …

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