PowerShell is Microsoft's platform for task automation. It comes with both a shell and scripting language, and is now more deeply integrated with Microsoft's suite of products. Microsoft applications such as Windows, Exchange, and SharePoint have increased their PowerShell support, and many tasks can now be done without having to go through the user interface. These automated and streamlined tasks equate to time savings and increased productivity for developers, administrators, and IT professionals.
As a database professional, you can also leverage PowerShell in your work. This book introduces you to PowerShell and taps into how you can use PowerShell in the context of SQL Server.
Chapter 1, Getting Started with PowerShell, introduces you to PowerShell and its importance in server management and automation. This chapter is a good starting point for readers who are new to PowerShell and want to get started with its environment and other components.
Chapter 2, Using PowerShell with SQL Server, dives into using SQL Server-specific PowerShell support in different operating systems and SQL Server versions. You will learn about SQL Server-specific modules, cmdlets, and SQL Management Objects (SMO).
Chapter 3, Profiling and Configuring SQL Server, covers how to quickly profile SQL Server and change SQL Server configurations using PowerShell. You will learn more about Get-WmiObject and the SMO Server object.
Chapter 4, Basic SQL Server Administration, covers the tasks in a DBA's checklist. These tasks include getting space/memory usage, backup/restore, enabling features, jobs, alerts, and so on.
Chapter 5, Querying SQL Server with PowerShell, shows the methods to query SQL Server from within PowerShell, its pros and cons, and how to export results.
Chapter 6, Monitoring and Automating SQL Server, teaches you how to perform SQL Server usage and performance monitoring, logging, alerting, and error checking using PowerShell.
Appendix, Implementing Reusability with Functions and Modules, shows some snippets required to accomplish the task at hand. It covers the basics of creating and deploying functions and modules.
For the purpose of this book, the requirements are as follows:
Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard
SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition
The system requirements for Windows PowerShell 4.0 and 3.0 are as follows:
The OS needs to be Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 7 with Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1, or Windows Server 2008 (for PowerShell 3.0 only)
Microsoft .NET Framework requirements are 4.5 for PowerShell 4.0 and 4 for PowerShell 3.0
WS-Management 3.0
Windows Management Instrumentation 3.0
Common Language Runtime 4.0
This book is written for SQL Server administrators and developers who want to leverage PowerShell to work with SQL Server. Some background with scripting will be helpful but not necessary.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The -Leaf option provides the filename part of the full path."
A block of code is set as follows:
$server.EnumProcesses() | Where-Object IsSystem -eq $false | Select-Object Spid, Database | Format-Table -AutoSize
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
$server.EnumProcesses() |
Where-Object IsSystem -eq $false |
Select-Object Spid, Database |
Format-Table -AutoSizeAny command-line input or output is written as follows:
Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Online
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "You can click on the CPU or Memory option to sort data according to those metrics."
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