PowerShell is like any computer language: you must understand the paradigms, the constructs, and the way it is designed to work to get the most value from it. It is no good just translating 'sausage-string' procedural algorithms. To demonstrate how PowerShell should be used as its' creators intended, Laerte Junior shows the difference between PowerShell problem-solving with, and without, PowerShell paradigms.… Read more
Although PowerShell is popular, for malicious intruders it represents a very attractive attack vector into your system. The obvious way of preventing this type of penetration is to detect when a script is altered. Not only must any script that is used for system or data administration be properly secured, but also any script that is used to maintain a PowerShell profile.… Read more
Whereas it is easy to provide inline documentation for a normal scripted
PowerShell cmdlet or function so as to provide comprehensive help at the command-line or IDE, the same isn't true of binary cmdlets written in C#. At last, there is an open-source utility to assist with this that is being actively
maintained and updated. At last, binary cmdlets need no longer be the poor cousins of scripted cmdlets in their documentation… Read more
PowerShell is an ideal tool for doing health checks of a collection of SQL Server instances, and there are several examples around, but few acknowledge the fact that individual DBAs have their own priorities for tests, and need something easily changed to suit circumstances. Omid's health check allows tests to be SQL or PowerShell and requires only adding, altering or deleting files in directories. … Read more
There are more exciting things in life than unit testing SQL Statements, checking the results, timings, and execution plans. Phil Factor demonstrates a PowerShell-based technique taking the tedium out of testing SQL DML.… Read more
For many developers, understanding pipelining in PowerShell is like understanding reductive physicalism: you think you've just about got it, and then the brain blue-screens. Michael Sorens is inspired by his several efforts to explain pipelining on StackOverflow to attempt the definitive simple explanation for the rest of us.… Read more
If you're making a report from table-based data, an MS Word document is often a good option. In the second part of his introduction to SQL Server best-practice monitoring, Laerte Junior shows how to use PowerShell scripts to create a Word-based report with colour-coded alerts where there are problems or best practices aren't being followed.… Read more
A DBA in charge of a whole lot of databases and servers has to check regularly that there are no likelihood of problems. The task is well suited for automation as workload increases. Laerte Junior introduces a PowerShell-based reporting framework that aims to simply provide a Word-based report with colour-coded alerts where there are problems or best practices aren't being followed.… Read more
It is the punctuation, the strange dollar signs, brackets and parentheses that bewilder anyone learning PowerShell. Add to that the aliases and you can bewilder everyone. The punctuation is essential, so here is the the complete PowerShell wallchart and guide to Powershell Punctuation. PowerShell need no longer be perplexing.… Read more
It's great to be able to monitor a counter or any other changing metric while engaged in development work. You'd think that the two alternatives would be using a third-party tool or hacking a PowerShell script. Well no, because there could be an existing open-source PowerShell module that would do it for you, and with a little customization could give you precisely what you need.… Read more
Hosted TFS, now called Visual Studio Online (VSO), has a new way of writing build processes called Build vNext. Agent tasks are the building blocks of processes and you can supplement the built-in ones with custom build tasks defined in JSON that use targets written in node.js or PowerShell. Jason Crease shows how to develop custom build tasks for building, testing, publishing and synchronizing databases.… Read more
The one question about PowerShell that trips up almost everyone is about when and how to quote strings. Because PowerShell replaces the old command shell, it has to be able to work the way that it did with string parameters, but it also has to behave like a .NET scripting language to replace VBA. PowerShell grapples with this apparent contradiction, and manages to square the circle. Michael Sorens explains the how and when of PowerShell quoting.… Read more
By reading performance counters from services such as SQL Server or Exchange, you can get a wealth of performance information. By automating the process of gathering and storing appropriate counters, you can routinely check a range of devices quickly using visual tools such as PerfMon. By then creating your own counters, you can add counter-based metrics to anything that can be measured programmatically, such as services, applications, processes such as ETL, or deployments. … Read more
One of the downsides of learning a new computer language is that transfer of training doesn't always work to your advantage. In fact, the habits you picked up in the past may now cause confusion. In this poster or wall-chart for long walls, Michael Sorens selects the thirty-six most common causes of confusion for anyone getting to grips with PowerShell. Forewarned is forearmed.… Read more
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is the basic way of querying and changing basic information about any windows server, including SQL Server or Exchange Server. It provides a logical structure and representation of systems and services that are hosted on the server and is essential for anyone who is keen to automate routine monitoring and administration work via PowerShell, especially where many servers are involved in the task.… Read more
There are some pitfalls in PowerShell for the unwary. Many people who are learning PowerShell come across quirks that can cause frustration. Michael Sorens continues his series, warning abut the most common PowerShell pitfalls and explains how to avoid them.… Read more
If you are aiming to optimise the use of your time by doing as much as possible via scripting, you will soon want to run scripts in parallel to save time. PowerShell does not demand that you run jobs one after the other; It has the means to launch actions whenever you wish and to obtain the results when you want them.… Read more
PowerShell has some very valuable features, but it is a mistake to believe that all those skills that you've derived from more conventional programming languages will transfer over to PowerShell. There are some pitfalls for the unwary. Michael Sorens warns abut the most common PowerShell pitfalls and explains how to avoid them.… Read more
For a number of reasons, it pays to have the up-to-date source of all the databases and servers that you're responsible for in a central archive, in version control, and this is a job that is best automated. If you enlist the help of SQL Compare Pro, you can create a Powershell-based system that can be extended to warn you of changes, roughly when they happened, with a report of exactly what changed and how.… Read more
Pester offers a relatively small number of commands to Unit-test PowerShell scripts, but these commands have tremendous capabilities. Pester even gives you the means to validate data and test program flow. It uses 'mocks' to provide hooks to validate program flow, so you can be more confident that a function is doing things they way you intended.… Read more
