I spoke in Columbus, GA and Edmonton, um…, somewhere in Canada on back to back nights this Tuesday and Wednesday.  (I’m kidding, I know it’s in Alberta, and you guys like the Jets right? )  I used the same slide deck for both sessions; well, for Edmonton I didn’t even use a slide deck, but the scripts I covered were a little different. 

I’ve recently learned that if you only have PowerPoint 2007 you’ll need to download this viewer because I built the slides in PowerPoint 2010.  Here are the scripts for Columbus and Edmonton.

I think both events went really well and got a lot of people saying: ‘Hey, this PowerShell stuff could work in my environment’.  I really hope they catch the fever!  I’d love to speak to each of these groups next year and see what questions they come up with and see how much they’re using it.  I’ve got a more advanced session that I will be debuting a little later this year so hopefully I’ll get to share it with them too.

Huge thanks to Jonathan Boulineau ( twitter ) and Colin Stasiuk ( blog | twitter ) for all they do for their groups all year long.

Wow, having been an attendee at SQL Saturday #21 in October of last year (just 10 months ago) I can’t believe we’re already up to #51.  That means we’re averaging 3 a month and there’s no stopping in site; in fact Next year’s schedule is already starting to fill in.  If you’re wondering where the closest one to you is just have a look at the Map.

I’ll be speaking at SQL Saturday #51 about PowerShell just before Allen White and our sessions cover completely different content so please come to both!  As soon as I’m done with my session I’m headed straight out the door and to the “World’s Fastest Half Mile”.  That’s right, I’m taking a 230 mile detour on my way to the night race.  There is going to be a freaking amazing amount of great speakers at this event and if you live within a 6 hour drive of Music City I Highly recommend you don’t miss one of the best lineups since SQL Saturday#33 in Charlotte. 

Next Tuesday I’ll be speaking at the Columbus, GA PASS Chapter.  This was actually supposed to be the first time for me to speak at a User Group meeting (as opposed to a SQL Saturday) but duty called in Atlanta this week. 

As always, there will be something new that I’ve never showed off before, most likely just a failed script from my Atlanta session but hey, they didn’t get to see it yet.    I’ve also been asked to include some sys-admin type stuff so I will do a walk through of Implicit Remoting and probably some important tips on working with Services.  There will also be an XML demo if there are any developers that want to check it out.

Details:

• The meeting will be held at the Columbus Library
• Date: 8/24/2010
• Time: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
• 3000 Macon Rd, Columbus, GA 31906

We had a great crowd of about 60 people last night at the Atlanta MDF which was really great considering it was the first day of school for a lot of the parents in the area.  The crowd had a bunch of great questions and while I couldn’t handle all of them I took several notes and will hopefully blog about the answers as I find them over the next couple of weeks. 

As promised, here are the scripts and slides I used.

Resources:
I mentioned several different resources last night and here are the ones I remember (just comment if you’re looking for one I forgot about):

• I did a week-long blog series on PowerShell with SQL Server for SQL University.
• Here’s the CodePlex project so that you can edit PowerShell in Visual Studio 2010 (You also need to install the free version of PowerGUI for this)
• The cheap software to build desktop gadgets with charts and maps is called Power Gadgets.
• A few weeks back I did a post on the top Learning Resources I use to learn PowerShell.
• and of course I can’t finish without saying:  If you need some help getting started from scratch using PowerShell with SQL Server check out my video on MSDN’s geekSpeak.

I’ll be speaking at the Atlanta MDF Monday night (2010-08-09).  I wanted to talk about internals but they’re making me speak about PowerShell.    I have a couple new demos since my Standing-Room-Only presentation at SQL Saturday #41 – Atlanta and as always I will have one new demo that I’ve never shown before.  If you’re in the area please come on out and see why I love using PowerShell to work with SQL Server so much.

Details:

• Please register so we know how much pizza to order.
• Date: 8/9/2010
• Time: 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
• Place: Microsoft 1125 Sanctuary Pkwy., Suite 300, Alpharetta, GA
• Speaker: Me.

Last week I spoke to the Atlanta PowerShell User Group about Remoting and Background Jobs.  There are a couple different flavors of Remoting but the one I’m most excited to show people is called Implicit Remoting.  What if you were on a machine that only had SSMS 2005 and you had to run something against a remote server that had SSMS 2008?  Enter Implicit Remoting.

With Implicit Remoting, essentially you temporarily download the cmdlets from the remote machine onto your local machine. When you execute the cmdlet it runs against the remote machine.

Before we start I want to set the scene.  On your local machine you need to have PowerShell 2.0.  The remote machine needs PowerShell 2.0 and SSMS 2008 installed.

Setting up the Remove Server
Log into the remote server via Remote Desktop and create a profile (notepad $pshome\profile.ps1) that contains this:

add-pssnapin SqlServerCmdletSnapin100
add-pssnapin SqlServerProviderSnapin100
 

Next create a new Remoting Configuration to load your SQL Items into your profile:

(* I used the ISE profile)

Register-PSSessionConfiguration -Name SQLSupport `
-StartupScript C:\Users\YourUserNameHere!!!\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1

Setting Up Your Local Machine
Open a Power Shell window that has no profile loaded. Run the following:

$RemoteSession = New-PSSession -ComputerName MyRemoteServer -ConfigurationName SQLSupport

Connect to the remote session you just defined in the variable:

Enter-PSSession $RemoteSession

Run this command to test your setup. You will see the SQL Server cmdlets from the snapin that was loaded with the Remoting Configuration.

get-command invoke-sqlcmd

Exit the session:

Exit-PSSession

Now we want to Import invoke-sqlcmd.  This will allow you to run your scripts against the remote server session that you defined.  This might not seem like much, but if you are working over a VPN from home this could be very useful.  Plus you don’t have to keep switching between your local shell and the remote one (*more on that another day).

Import-PSSession $RemoteSession -CommandName invoke-sqlcmd

get-command invoke-sqlcmd

Putting it to Use
Now that all of this is done what command will you run?  Well anything.  Just because I wanted to see if it could be done I went ahead and ran Back Woodys ‘backup all user databases script’.   Run anything you want, but a good start is something simple like:

invoke-sqlcmd -query "sp_databases" -database master `
-serverinstance localhost | format-table

Happy scripting.

It feels like forever since I spoke at a SQL Saturday!  The South Florida SQL Saturday will be help on July 31st, 2010 at Devry University – South Florida, 2300 SW 145 Ave, Miramar, FL 33027. Event checking will be at 7:30 with the Keynote beginning at 8:00 and sessions beginning at 8:30.    I can’t wait to get down there.

Max Trinidad ( blog | twitter ) has put together an entire day of PowerShell training for this event and I get to be one of the speakers!  I’ll be doing my PowerShell for Data Professionals session.  Which I am very proud to say I will be presenting  a longer and more in depth version of this session at this year’s PASS Summit, so come cathch the preview!  I’ve got a new trick to show the fine folks of South Florida and I can’t wait to get their feedback.

Besides myself the three other PowerShell speakers are going to be: Ronald Dameron ( blog | twitter ), David Corrales from Sapien, and of course Maximo Trinidad.

Here’s what that PowerShell track is going to look like:

Ronald Dameron Why SQL Server DBAs should learn PowerShell

Ronald Dameron Automate ID Administration w/ PowerShell & SQLPSX

Aaron Nelson PowerShell for the Data Professional

David Corrales Sneak Preview: SAPIEN’s Visual PowerShell 2011

Maximo Trinidad Working with SQL Server – SQLPS

Maximo Trinidad Using PowerShell with SQL Server Agent

I am We are now monitoring #PoShHelp on twitter for #PowerShell help

The #SQLHelp hashtag has been an overwhelming success and it is time for PowerShell to get their own help tag. The PowerShell community is incredibly generous and this tag can help those generous and knowledgeable folks impart their wisdom when you are struggling. I think #PoShHelp will be a great success.

How to Ask #PoShHelp Questions

Sign up for a Twitter account.  You don’t have to follow anyone, but if you want to, I’d suggest following Steven Murawski’s PowerShell Twitterers list instead of individual people.  Brent Ozar has a post on how to use Twitter lists, but in a nutshell, they let you keep in touch with a lot of people who focus on a particular topic.  The cool part is that their tweets don’t clutter up your main Twitter page, which is important because there’s several hundred PowerShell folks on Twitter as of this writing.

When you need help, write a tweet and include #PoShHelp in the tweet, like this:

Why not just use the #PowerShell hashtag that everyone already uses?

People use that hashtag for anything PowerShell related.  Blogs, news stories, events, pictures, funny stories, training, even problems: all things that someone wants to let everyone else in the community know about.  The problem is that it can become very chatty and so I can’t have tweetdeck notify me every time that someone says something about PowerShell.  I do have a job ya’ know

What not to use the #PoShHelp hashtag for?

Pretty much the #1 rule is:  Don’t use the #PoShHelp tag for marketing.  The tag is there for people to help other people they may have never met.  Because of this (and just how insanely generous all these PowerShell people are) they might setup the advanced notifications in twitter apps like tweetdeck to notify them every time someone asks for #PoShHelp.  If you’re trying to promote software, events, or your blog (and the blog post has nothing to do with how you helped someone that asked for #PoShHelp) then don’t use #PoShHelp just use #PowerShell.

While the PowerShell community isn’t quite as large as the SQL community it’s still pretty darn big and everyone I’ve ever learned PowerShell from is on twitter.

* Please Note:  A portion of this post was completely ripped off and hacked back together from a post Brent Ozar originally did on the #SQLHelp hashtag

Please come join us for our sixth meeting

When: Tuesday July 20, 2010 at 6 pm
Where: 211 Perimeter Center Parkway, Suite 200, Atlanta, GA 30346
How: Please RSVP so we can get a head count, bring your laptop if you can
What:  People from all over Atlanta getting together to talk PowerShell

The July meeting of the Atlanta PowerShell User Group will be all about Jobs and Remoting. The presentation will be presented by Aaron Nelson, aka SQLvariant. <—Oh wait, that’s me!

Some of the items covered include:

• How to run PowerShell scripts without having to wait for them to complete.
• How to run PowerShell scripts on multiple remote systems.
• How to interactively run PowerShell on remote systems.
• much much more.

Please RSVP so we can get a head count. Pizza and drinks are provided by the ALTPUG thanks to UGSS.org Our meeting will be held at the New Horizon’s training center at 211 Perimeter Center Parkway, Suite 200, Atlanta, GA 30346. Click here for directions and a map. We currently do not have access to the site’s computers so bring your laptop if you can.

Yesterday a conversation on twitter about PowerShell learning resources lead me to realize that: The PowerShell tab on my own site could use some updating BUT: It’s grown to the point where it’s probably not all that useful for someone starting out.  To that end here are 7 8 key resources that I would recommend for learning PowerShell:

• Listen to the PowerScripting Podcast
• The Show Notes for the PowerScripting Podcast are freaking treasure trove of info so subscribe to that blog and go exploring what was mentioned in past shows.
• Subscribe to Jonathan Medd’s PowerShell 2.0: One Cmdlet at a Time  blog series.
• Jonathan Medd also co-hosts a podcast on PowerShell. Subscribe to both of these, load them on the mp3 player and listen to them on your way to work. You’ll learn without realizing it.
• Windows PowerShell In Action (Second Edition):  An excellent book that even includes some of the “hows” and “whys” they made the tough decisions in this new language.  
• Get yourself on the PowerShell Tip of the Day email (or RSS Feed)
• Windows PowerShell™ 2.0 Best Practices: This book is really thick but it is written in a way that is very easy to read even for people that are sill learning.  Everyone should feel comfortable picking up this book.
• Of course:  If you run into a problem just tweet the ScriptingGuys.  Also be sure to subscribe to their daily blog (including weekends & holidays) where they lay out how to solve all kinds of questions people ask of them.  And if you problem is longer than a tweet.  Scripter@Microsoft.com
• and of course I can’t finish without saying:  If you need some help getting started from scratch using PowerShell with SQL Server check out my video on MSDN’s geekSpeak and blog series from SQL University.

I use quite a few more learning resources but this is where I started and where I would recommend for people to get started.  I hope this helps! 

I had a really great time at CodeStock this weekend!  I plan on doing a wrap-up post later this week but I just wanted take a moment and post my slides and scripts that I used during my PowerShell for Data Professionals session.

Two weeks back I had the opportunity to present a session on PowerShell Windows Admin Commands at the Atlanta TechStravaganza.  I was a little worried about the presentation because I had never presented to a crowd of system administrators before.  Luckily I pulled it off and believe the standing room only crowd learned a lot and discovered ways to make PowerShell relevant to their work.  They did stump me with a question about opening ports but luckily Mark Schill ( blog | twitter ) was able to provide the correct answer for us all. 

Thanks to everyone who took time out of their Friday to come by and see it.  I got a lot of great comments from people in the hallway after my session.  Some of them really liked the different approach I took to presenting it.  As promised here are all of the Sildes and Scritps that I used during the session.

Oh and thanks to all the sponsors!

Please come join us for our fourth meeting

Note: Due to a scheduling conflict with the hosting facility our meeting this week is being held NEXT WEEK, a week later than normal.

When: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 6 pm
Where: 211 Perimeter Center Parkway, Suite 200, Atlanta, GA 30346
How: Please RSVP so we can get a head count
What:  People from all over Atlanta getting together to talk PowerShell [Profiles]

Our June meeting will be all about PowerShell Profiles. Mark Schill will be demoing his profile. Some of the key concepts that he will be covering include:

- aliases
- one-liner functions
- other functions
- setting prompt
- env vars (environmental variables)
- "configuring your environment"
- sync/roam across machines
- modular (dot-source or import) vs monolithic (all in one file)

If you have any cool tips/tricks that you use in your profile and would like to share, email them to Mark.Schill@cmschill.net.

For the second half of the meeting you will be working on and discussing your own profiles so make sure to print your profiles and collaborate with your colleagues.

Again, please RSVP so we can get a head count.  We currently do not have access to the site’s computers so bring your laptop if you can.

del.icio.us Tags: PowerShell,Atlanta,User Group

Providers

What are Providers?  Providers in PowerShell are a hierarchical namespace way flattening out an infrastructure to make it accessible and traverse-able just like a directory structure hard drive.  Why do you need them?  Well you quite possibly may not ‘need’ them per-say but they sure do make things easier to work with from time to time.  In case you don’t already know, you can traverse your SQL Server [2008] as if it were just another drive in either SSMS 2008 or in the PowerShell ISE if you add the Provider Snapin.

To make sure that you have this snapin installed on your machine see yesterday’s post but this time we are going to add the ProviderSnapin instead of the CmdletSnapin. 

To do that just run

add-pssnapin SqlServerProviderSnapin100

and poof you can traverse SQL Server.  Let’s take a look at what we might see.  Run

get-psdrive

and you should see a list of drives including SQL Server.  Now if you have more that one instance you will be able to access all of them through this one “SQLServer:\” PSDrive that you now have.  In a lot cases what we find inside of these drives will be similar to what we see in the Object Explorer view in SSMS but almost always have something extra too.  Let’s take a look at that here by changing directories down to our databases

cd SQLSERVER:\sql\WIN7\KILIMANJARO\

Now let’s go ahead and run the good old “Dir” command and we should get back something like this

dir

As I mentioned before, we got back more than we see if we expand our SQL Server node in the Object Explorer window of SSMS, now if we CD to Databases and do another dir we will see not just more than what we see in SSMS, we see what at first glace to a SQL person is just garbage (but it’s not). 

cd Databases
dir

What you’re seeing here is the Methods and Properties of the databases in your instance.  What are Methods and Properties?  Well if you’re like I was 6 months ago you have no idea what Methods and Properties are.  Methods are the Verbs of what you can do to your database (Create, Rename, Drop, Shrink) and Properties and the Adjectives that describe your database (Collation, CreateDate, Compatibility Level, Owner, AutoShrink Enabled).  To get just the list of the names of your databases you’re going to have to run this:

dir | select-object name

Ok so now we can see a list of databases that our Provider made available to us.   So what?  Well I’m going to dive a little deeper tomorrow but for now let’s just go with one final example on scripting out tables (more on that here).  Run this: cd AdventureWorks\Tables Then this:

foreach ($tbl in dir )

{
$k="C:\Temp\" + $($tbl.name) + "_table.SQL"
$tbl.Script() > $k
}

I really hope you have temp directory on your C:\ drive.  If so go have a look what’s there now

So is that it?  Almost.  While SQL Server 2008 only comes with one provider and it’s for the Relational Engine a few people have taken it upon themselves to create their own Provider for things like Analysis Services,  Reporting Services, and event BizTalk up on the codeplex site.  I can say that I have tried the Analysis Services project and it does work. 

Cmdlets, Functions and Snapins

So far we’ve learned how to open up PowerShell and add on to it with some modules; then we learned how to create a variable and populate it with anything from some numbers to an entire table.  Today we’re going to quickly look at another way of expanding PowerShell with something called a snapin so that we can get to some cmdlets.

First, what are cmdlets?  Cmdlets are similar to DOS commands but have some noteworthy differences.  In SQL Server terms you might think of cmdlets as the System Stored Procedures of PowerShell and think of functions as the regular user defined Stored Procedures of PowerShell. 

Cmdlets and functions accept parameters just like stored procedures do.  Just like stored procedures you can even define default values for these parameters in case the user doesn’t have one to pass in.  Unlike stored procedures though there is actually a drive that you can go to and see all of your functions.  Just run this and you’ll see what I mean dir function:

Snapins are akin to finished product code. They were created for PowerShell 1.0 and were succeeded in PowerShell 2.0 by modules– which are more like the manifest list for deploying a bunch of SSIS packages.  If you have SSMS 2008 installed you’ve got yourself two extra snapins already.  And if you have Idera’s SQL Diagnostic Manager installed you may be in for a real surprise when you retrieve your list of snapins.  Run this command to see all of the extra snapins that are available to you:
get-pssnapin –registered 

At the very least you should see this:

If you don’t see those two you’ll need to install SSMS 2008.  If you don’t have a copy of that handy you can get the free version of it here.  The SqlServerCmdletSnapin100 snapin give us the 5 cmdlets that come with SQL Server 2008 and today we’re going to focus on Invoke-SQLcmd which basically just calls out to good old sqlcmd.  To load this just run:

add-pssnapin SqlServerCmdletSnapin100

From there we can do a quick query like this:

invoke-sqlcmd -query "sp_databases" -database master -serverinstance WIN7\Kilimanjaro | format-table

Now the reason that I brought up functions is because they override cmdlets and that’s really important to know.  If you run this command get-command invoke-sqlcmd you will only see one thing returned for invoke-sqlcmd.  However if we create a new function like:

function invoke-sqlcmd { get-date }

You end up overriding the Invoke-SQLcmd with your new function.  Give it a try, run just this invoke-sqlcmd and you should end up seeing something like this:

So how do you know when you’ve done something like that?  Just run get-command invoke-sqlcmd again and this time you will see this:

I realize that we kind of rushed through that info but thankfully there is only one more piece to the basics before we can get on to code that you can use on a daily basis

Getting Started With PowerShell Variables

Yesterday we laid the ground work for PowerShell Week.  Today we will learn about Variables in PowerShell. You will notice that PowerShell variables work very differently from SQL Server variables.

The evolution of variables in SQL Server is pretty straight forward. In SQL Server 2000 you had to DECLARE a variable as a specific type in one statement and then SET the value of the variable in another statement, like this: DECLARE @SQLvariable VARCHAR(12) SET @SQLvariable = ‘OldFeature’. By the time SQL 2008 hit the streets we could DECLARE and SET a variable in one statement like this: DECLARE @SQLvariable VARCHAR(12) = ‘NewFeature’ . PowerShell evolves variables to the next logical step.  You no longer need to declare or type your variable. Instead PowerShell uses the value of the variable to infer it’s type. If a variable does not alreayd exist PowerShell simply creates it for you.  In PowerShell our statement looks like this: $SQLvariable = ‘NewFeature’. (Beginer tip: $ identifies variables in PowerShell just like @ identifies them in SQL Server.)

Since it doesn’t work in SQL let’s try it in PowerShell: $SQLvariable = ‘NewFeature’.  OK so we loaded data into a variable, ‘big deal’ right?  How do we know that we actually loaded it and more importantly what datatype is it?  Well in PowerShell you can simply call the variable to get its value. (Another beginer tip: you don’t need to use a keyword like SELECT for this, just the variable name: $SQLvariable.)  What if you just want to determine the datatype?  All you have to do is tack on the .GetType() Method: $SQLvariable.GetType().

$SQLvariable = 'NewFeature'
$SQLvariable
$SQLvariable.GetType()

When you run this here’s what your result will be:

As I alluded to earlier, another feature of PowerShell is that it remembers your variables for you, even between executions.  Basically as long as you don’t end your session the variable, it’s datatype, and its value will persist.  You will see later than you can also set a variable in one script and consume it in another.

Let’s try this again with a new variable and set it to a different value:

$PoShvariable = 123
$PoShvariable
$PoShvariable.GetType()

What happens if once the datatype is set we try to set it to a different, incompatible datatype?  It’s going to explode right?  Nope, you’ll have to throw something more difficult than that at it.  Give this a try:

$PoShvariable.GetType()
$PoShvariable = 'NewFeature'
$PoShvariable
$PoShvariable.GetType()

Since PowerShell relies on .NET a variable could be any datatype in .NET so if you’re sitting inside the AdventureWorks database you can see for yourself, just run this:

$MyTable = get-item TABLES\Production.TransactionHistory
$MyTable.GetType()            

$MyStoredProc = get-item StoredProcedures\HumanResources.uspUpdateEmployeePersonalInfo
$MyStoredProc.GetType()

Now earlier I mentioned that PowerShell keeps track of and remembers the variables that you previously declared.  So how do you see what variables are already there?  Just run this command and you can see every variable you have running in the session, even the internal ones.

Variable

In the list of items that get returned you’ll see one called Error that holds the last error message that occurred in your session.  This handy feature can help you when you have to debug your own work.

Is that all there is to know about variables in PowerShell?  Not hardly, but I think that’s a good stopping point for this post.  More on variables later.

Welcome to PowerShell Week at SQL University.  For regulars at SQLvariant, SQL University is something Jorge Segarra organized to get industry experts together to create learning courses around SQL Server.  These learning courses are in one week segments that focus on a specific area. 

When I began blogging about PowerShell there were some complications based on your operating system. There were so many people blogging about these issues that I didn’t address it initially.  Since this is an introductory course I decided to go ahead and spin up a brand new Windows 7 VM so that I can walk you through these small but vital details.  If you don’t have Windows 7 this would be a great time to upgrade.  If you can’t upgrade then download PowerShell for you operating system from this link.  Now, onto getting started:

Disclaimer:
PowerShell opens in a protected state as a security measure.  To enjoy the full power of PowerShell (and run scripts you downloaded off of the internet) you need to run without these safeguards. In today’s lesson we are simply launching PowerShell and priming it for the scripts and work we will interact with in the next several lessons.

To get started with PowerShell just click the Start button and type in ISE to locate the Integrated Script Editor in your program listing.  Right click and launch PowerShell in Run as Adminsitrator mode:

Enter Get-ExecutionPolicy as a command. If you haven’t used PowerShell yet you will most likely see that the Execution Policy is set to “Restricted”.  You’ll need to run the command Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned to be able to run the scripts and follow along with the lesson.  You’ll also get a popup that you’ll have to say yes to. 

Your output should look very non-informative like this:

Now that we have that set let’s go to SQLPSX.CodePlex.com and and download the SQLPSX project.  It’s currently in version 2.2.1 and consists of 9 modules containing 133 advanced functions, only 2 cmdlets and 7 scripts.  It’s for working with ADO.NET, SMO, SQL Agent, RMO, SSIS, SQL script files and using the PowerShell ISE as a SQL query tool:

NOTE:  Update at bottom with workaround:

During the installation we will run it without modifying the profile (just yet).

Once you’ve installed it successfully you should now have a WindowsPowerShell directory under your My Documents if you didn’t have one already (which is really important):

After it’s installed we should be able to open up the ISE again and run this command :

Get-Module -ListAvailable

And finally we’re going to get to the step where we load something up.  Run import-module SQLServer to load up the main SQL Server module.  After you run that command it won’t give you any output telling you that it successfully loaded so you can run this command write-host -foregroundcolor DarkGreen “Modules Loaded: $(get-module)” to have it tell you what Modules it currently has loaded.

Alright that pretty much wraps it up for today.  I know we didn’t do a lot with PowerShell and SQL Server yet but this gets some important ground work out of the way so that hopefully everyone is able to script along for the rest of the week.  (If you’re dying to read ahead have a look at this post: Basic Querying From PowerShell)

If you run into any issues please leave a comment and I’ll be glad to lend any help that I can.  See all you back here tomorrow.

UPDATE:

There seems to be an issue with loading the SQLServer Module as I had described.  I have found this to be a work-around:  Go to \\~\My Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\SQLIse\Modules\ and copy everything except for the SQLISE folder, then go to the \\~\My Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\ folder and paste all of those items.  At this point you should now be able to run the command and get it to load up properly. 

I will post more when I found out other alternatives.

Please come join us for our third meeting

When: Tuesday May 18, 2010 at 6 pm
Where: 211 Perimeter Center Parkway, Suite 200, Atlanta, GA 30346
How: Please RSVP so we can get a head count
What:  People from all over Atlanta getting together to talk PowerShell

What is a script club you ask? You bring an idea for a script, and ask your fellow PowerShell users for help getting the script written. If it’s PowerShell, its covered — just bear in mind that it may be hard to test things like Exchange scripts, Active Directory, or SQL Server management scripts unless you have a nice virtual lab on your laptop. What are the Rules of Script Club?

1. You always talk about script club
2. You always talk about script club
3. If someone asks for help, and you can help, you help
4. Two people help one person at one time
5. One module per person per night
6. All scripts, all PowerShell
7. Scripts will be as short as they can be
8. If this is your first time at Script Club, You have to script!

Please RSVP so we can get a head count. Our meeting is graciously sponsored by PowerShellCommunity.org.

Last week I did a podcast for geekSpeak and a similar session at SQL Saturday #38 in Jacksonville.  I’ve already blogged about most of the scripts in those sessions but here is a download of a bunch of those scripts.  I have changed them a little from the way they were written in my session so that they can run independently without worrying about whether or not you need to load a snapin or module.  If you need it to run the script, it’s in there.  Don’t forget that for all but one of them you will either need to have SSMS 2008 installed or the SQLPSX codeplex project.

If you don’t remember which script it was that you were interested in, here’s the recording of the session that I did for geekSpeak.

Enjoy!

Oh, and don’t forget Buck Woody’s disclaimer about running scripts you find on the internet:

If you didn’t make it to my webcast on MSDN’s geekSpeak yesterday you can catch me at SQL Saturday #38 in Jacksonville this weekend.  As always I’ll be including a few new scripts since the last time I gave this presentation.  There will be a lot of great speakers down in Jacksonville and the last I heard, there were over 550 people registered.

In addition to my PowerShell for Data Professionals session I will also be doing a presentation on using Hyper-V and SCVMM to manage your Dev and Test environments called Virtualize This! 

Oh, and please remember to bring lots of good questions.

The other day I was answering a question in the forums on PowerGUI.org that I thought would be a quick answer.  The only problem was that I had my T-SQL hammer in my hand and not my PowerShell hammer.  When I read the question I thought of a way to solve the problem using T-SQL and PowerShell; the only problem was I didn’t think outside of this toolset.  PowerShell MVP Shay Levy ( blog | twitter ) chimed in with a much better answer.

Now granted I usually prefer to give answers that your typical data professionals will be comfortable with, ones that pass along a query, but in this case I have to go with the solution that you might not be as comfortable with.  There’s a good reason though:  It’s faster.

here was my answer:

#Only load this part once when you open up your PowerShell Session
add-pssnapin SqlServerCmdletSnapin100
add-pssnapin SqlServerProviderSnapin100            

#Create a text file in your c:\temp\ directory called AllServers.txt
#Put each server\instance on a new line.
foreach ($svr in get-content "C:\temp\AllServers.txt")             

{
#sp_databases | format-table
invoke-sqlcmd -query "SELECT @@SERVERNAME AS 'ServerName', @@VERSION AS 'SQL Version'" -database master -serverinstance $svr >> "c:\temp\MySQLServerVersions.txt"
}

and here was Shay’s answer:

$null = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.SqlServer.SMO')            

Get-Content Allservers.txt | Foreach-Object {
   $sql= New-Object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server $_
   $sql | Select-Object @{n='ServerName';e={$sql.name}},@{n='Version';e={$sql.version}}
}

Without a doubt Shay’s answer is better because it returned the same results in a better format AND ran in a quarter of the time of my answer.  In my environment my solution took a respectable 60 milliseconds to run, Shay’s answer using the SMO took 15 milliseconds.  What’s my point today?  The SMO is worth learning because it can be faster.�
Where can you learn the SMO?  I’m glad you asked   Take a look at this MSDN article by SMO expert Allen White ( blog | twitter )

Next week I am giving a PowerShell for Data Professionals session on MSDN’s geekSpeak.  If you haven’t heard of  geekSpeak all you really need to know is they have one primary rule for presenters:Your webcast is limited to only 1 Power Point slide. geekSpeak presentations focus on practical live examples and interactive question and answer sessions that allow you to learn from a presentation in a way that you can immediately start applying to your job.

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032449694&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

If you haven’t caught this presentation at a SQL Saturday yet, or if you want to see it again, then this is a chance to watch from your desk and follow along in Powershell for yourself.

The show is at 3pm Eastern/Noon Pacific.  You can see previous geekSpeak shows and subscribe to their feed here.  Please stop by and heckle me check it out.

Because simply helping organize the event isn’t enough Stuart ( blog | twitter ) decided that I should speak at SQL Saturday #41 in Atlanta too.  I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that not only is he not speaking at this SQL Saturday but he scheduled me for 2 sessions!  OK, enough smack-talk.

This year we will be hosting over 30 speakers including 6 MVPs, and around a half-dozen speakers from Microsoft.  We’re lucky enough to have planned on having David Rodriguez present 3 session on SQL Server 2008 R2 right after it launched earlier this week (yep we planned the whole thing out that way ).  We’ve got 250 registered and 65 people on the wait list so the next time we do this “we’re gonna need a bigger boat”.  If you’re one of those people on the wait list we’ll be glad to have you join us if we have room after 9 am. 

If you’re not anywhere near Atlanta there are SQL Saturdays happening in New York and Southern California this weekend as well.  My sessions are going to be on Virtualization using Hyper-V and SCVMM (Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager) and Windows PowerShell.

Remember to dress in layers and I hope to see everyone there tomorrow.

I’ll have more info for you guys later but this will be my first non-SQL-centric event that I will be speaking at so I just wanted to share  I’m extra-excited about this event because this year they are making a push for Women In Technology.  Here’s a snippet from that announcement:

“This year we are hoping to aid in raising awareness for women in technology.  The US Department of Labor reported in 2009 women made up only 22.9% of computer programmers, and just 20.9% of computer software engineers.  For comparison, women chief executives counted for 23.4% – more women are CEOs than programmers!  (As an aside, 79.2% of meeting and convention planners are women, I’m a rarity it seems.)

This problem isn’t a simple one, and it not going to be fixed by a clever logo, but we can help by raising awareness.”

Here’s some more info on the event:

The theme for CodeStock 2010 is about connections.  Connecting with peers and building a professional network.  Connecting with IT roles outside of your own.  Connecting with the people who can help make your ideas reality.

• Keynote by Microsoft Developer Evangelist Rachel Appel
• Sessions for Developers, IT Professionals, and Entrepreneurs
• 100+ break out sessions + Open Spaces (self-organizing sessions)
• Panel discussions and live podcasts
• CodeStock Social Event to meet and make connections

Space is limited so register today at CodeStock.org

Please come join us for our second meeting  

I will be as well as several PowerShell experts. 

When: Tomorrow Tuesday April 20, 2010 at 6 pm
Where: 211 Perimeter Center Parkway, Suite 200, Atlanta, GA 30346
How: Please RSVP so we can get a head count
What:  People from all over Atlanta getting together to talk PowerShell

What is a script club you ask? You bring an idea for a script, and ask your fellow PowerShell users for help getting the script written. If it’s PowerShell, its covered — just bear in mind that it may be hard to test things like Exchange scripts, Active Directory, or SQL Server management scripts unless you have a nice virtual lab on your laptop. What are the Rules of Script Club?

1. You always talk about script club
2. You always talk about script club
3. If someone asks for help, and you can help, you help
4. Two people help one person at one time
5. One module per person per night
6. All scripts, all PowerShell
7. Scripts will be as short as they can be
8. If this is your first time at Script Club, You have to script!

Please RSVP so we can get a head count. Our meeting is graciously sponsored by PowerShellCommunity.org.

For this month’s T-SQL Tuesday I thought I’d go with something useful that I’ve been meaning to blog about for weeks now.  While listening to the PowerScripting Podcast a few month’s back I heard about a product that sounded really cool for simple data visualization and quickly showing people just how powerful PowerShell is.  Now to get this to work using all the code on the screen you’ll at least have to download the trial version of of the Power Gadgets however even without the method I describe is important if you’re new to this type of reporting (desktop gadgets).

Turns out this little piece of software had even more packed into it than I was hoping for.  I needed a piece of software that could allow me to pipe data to it to display it in a desktop gadget as a list.

Before I show you how to setup this quick-and-easy tool to create desktop gadgets I want to issue a warning against setting up this type of thing directly against your production database; read all the way through or don’t blame me when you bring your production environment down.

What you want to do (at the very least) is to have all of the gadgets that you deploy read from a central location where they only have to scoop up the results of the query that you’re trying to report on, and not 400 gadgets running the query itself.  An easy way to accomplish this would be to run the query in an Agent Job against your production environment (assuming that you don’t have a live reporting copy) and deposit those results in a table.  Let’s see if we can step through an example with the AdventureWorks database.

If this below were your query to show your sales for today…

SELECT SUM(SOD.OrderQty) AS ‘OrderQty‘, s.StateProvinceCode
  FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader SOH
 INNER JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail SOD
    ON SOH.SalesOrderID = SOD.SalesOrderID
  JOIN Production.Product P
    ON SOD.ProductID = P.ProductID
  JOIN Person.Address A
    ON SOH.BillToAddressID = A.AddressID
  JOIN Person.StateProvince S
    ON A.StateProvinceID = S.StateProvinceID
 WHERE SOH.OrderDate = ’2001-07-01 00:00:00.000′ –<—This would get GETDATE() or something
 GROUP BY S.StateProvinceCode

…you would really want to create an Agent Job to load that into a table and select off of the table.  For simplicity we’ll leave out the job and just use the queries.

/* <Do this part only one time>*/

USE [AdventureWorks]

GO

CREATE SCHEMA [Report] AUTHORIZATION [dbo]

GO

CREATE TABLE [Report].[TodaysSalesOrderByState](

[OrderQty] [int] NULL,

[StateProvinceCode] [nchar](3) NOT NULL,

[LastLoadTime] DATETIME NOT NULL CONSTRAINT [DF_LastLoadTime] DEFAULT GETDATE()

) ON [PRIMARY]

/* </Do this part only one time>*/

Then this…

/* <This is the part that would eventually go into an agent job, along with a delete statement before it that was in the same transaction>*/

 INSERT INTO Report.TodaysSalesOrderByState (

[OrderQty],

[StateProvinceCode])

SELECT SUM(SOD.OrderQty) AS ‘OrderQty‘, s.StateProvinceCode

  FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader SOH

 INNER JOIN Sales.SalesOrderDetail SOD

    ON SOH.SalesOrderID = SOD.SalesOrderID

  JOIN Production.Product P

    ON SOD.ProductID = P.ProductID

  JOIN Person.Address A

    ON SOH.BillToAddressID = A.AddressID

  JOIN Person.StateProvince S

    ON A.StateProvinceID = S.StateProvinceID

 WHERE SOH.OrderDate = ’2001-07-01 00:00:00.000′ –<—This would get GETDATE() or something

 GROUP BY S.StateProvinceCode

/* </This is the part that would eventually go into an agent job>*/

Now you’ll want to create a stored proc that will be used to call the report data.  It will also make creating the report nice and clean.

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[rp_MapThat]
AS 

SELECT [OrderQty]
      ,[StateProvinceCode] AS ‘State’
  FROM [AdventureWorks].[Report].[TodaysSalesOrderByState]
GO

After that all you have to do is to go ahead and create the gadget using this little script:

#Go ahead and add the SQL Snapins
add-pssnapin SqlServerCmdletSnapin100
add-pssnapin SqlServerProviderSnapin100
#add the Gadgets Snapin
add-pssnapin PowerGadgets            

invoke-sqlcmd -query "EXEC dbo.rp_MapThat" -database AdventureWorks -serverinstance WIN7\KILIMANJARO | out-map -values OrderQty -label State -title "CountByState" -refresh 0:1:0

And now you’ve got a gadget prototype.  I’m sure you can figure out how to turn it into an operational gadget for your company.

I’ll be speaking at SQL Saturday #31 in Chicago this weekend. I’m presenting a PowerShell for Data Professionals session.  This is based off a previous session but does include some new content.  If you’ve seen the session before, there will be something new and the demos will hopefully transition a little smoother.  I’m working with PowerShell automation every day at work and am still discovering new tricks and finding new targets for automation.

Here are some details on the session:

The first time that I saw PowerShell I hated it.  I thought it was complicated and stupid.  After trying a couple of scripts I gave up on PowerShell.  Then Windows 7 (and it’s nice script editor) was released and a light went on.  My session takes you through Power Shell basics and then I put it in action automating tasks DBAs do daily and showing you how to check servers for some common worst practices.

There are a lot of excellent speakers at this SQL Saturday. I hope to see you there.

The inaugural meeting of the Atlanta PowerShell User Group will be held on Tuesday March 16th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. You can sign up now at http://powershellgroup.org/atlanta.ga.  Please RSVP so we can get a head count.

Our meeting will be held at the New Horizon’s training center at 211 Perimeter Center Parkway, Suite 200, Atlanta, GA 30346. Click here for directions and a map.

Our meeting is graciously sponsored by PowerShellCommunity.org who will be providing the PIZZA.

Our first meeting will be a script club.

What is a script club you ask? You bring an idea for a script, and ask your fellow PowerShell users for help getting the script written. If it’s PowerShell, its covered — just bear in mind that it may be hard to test things like Exchange scripts or Active Directory management scripts unless you have a nice virtual lab on your laptop.

What are the Rules of Script Club?

1. You always talk about script club
2. You always talk about script club
3. If someone asks for help, and you can help, you help
4. Two people help one person at one time
5. One module per person per night
6. All scripts, all PowerShell
7. Scripts will be as short as they can be
8. If this is your first time at Script Club, You have to script!

We currently do not have access to the site’s computers so bring your laptop if you can.

I just received word that I will be speaking at SQL Saturday #29 in Birmingham Steel City.

I’ll be speaking on two topics, PowerShell and Virtualization.  I’ve got two new tricks that I’ve put together for the PowerShell session since #33 in Charlotte so we’ll see if I can squeeze them into my already overflowing session.  I guess I’ll just have to leave out a few of the developer jokes .  I’m been busily deleting things off of my hard drive so that I can get better demos available for the Virtualization session.  I hope that does the trick because I don’t have an extra $700 to splurge on a larger SSD.

Before and between my sessions I will be trying to catch Adam Jorgensen PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint 2010 (since so far he’s snubbing us in Atlanta) Kevin Boles SQL Server Memory Deep Dive and I’m thinking I might check out Rodney Landrum DBA Repository Update 2010 Using SSRS and SSIS. 

I hope to see you there!

More Details:

What: An all day FREE training event with 20 technical SQL Server sessions spread out over three tracks of Business Intelligence, Database Administration and SQL Development. Breakfast and lunch will be provided at the event and there will be an after party at the Tilted Kilt on Hwy 280.

When:  Saturday, March, 27, 2010. Online registration is now open, but it is filling up fast so reserve your spot now. Attendee check-in will begin at 8:00am until 8:45am with opening comments from 8:45am to 9:00am and the first sessions beginning at 9:15am. A full list of session tracks and schedule is available.

Where: The Shelby-Hoover Campus of Jefferson State Community College at the new Health Sciences Building at the intersection of Valleydale Road and Jaguar Drive across from Veterans Park near Spain Park High School at 4600 Valleydale Road Birmingham, AL 35242.

register online to reserve your spot. Show up and attend the sessions that you like.

SQL Saturday! #29 is presented by Steel City SQL, the Birmingham Chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) and brought to you by these sponsors.

I’ve mentioned that my company is doing a data center move in the near future and I’ve been building out some PowerShell scripts to get ready for that.  Before we get there though we are having to rebuild one of our test environments from the ground up.  When I told my coworker Shyam of my approach he slightly disagreed and said he thought he had a better way. 

So today Shyam and I are holding a little contest, We’re each going to put together some code to detach all of the databases on one server, copy them to a new server, and then attach them all.  Shyam is using an approach where he uses a lot of SMO calls, I am using an approach where I do a bunch of SQL queries.  I’ll keep all of you posted on who wins, why, and give you the code once we’re done (minus any edits for security but it will be working code). 

It’s really great to have a coworker like Shyam to hold a friendly little competition like this with.  I can’t wait to see how he ends up solving a couple of the problems that we’ve already come across.  Here’s some of the P. of C. code that we’re both using to get us started; it’s basic ‘code that writes code’ but what we’re going after is ‘code that writes AND executes code’.

This generates the list of databases and files including file# to use with the sp_attach_db command.  I know that in 2005+ you should use ALTER DATABASE … WITH ATTACH but we have a mix of SQL 2000 and 2005 in this project.  (which means I’m actually running this command through a linked server connection on the 2000 boxes.)

SELECT CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY db.name ORDER BY sf.filename) = 1 THEN ‘GO
sp_attach_DB @dbname=”’+SUBSTRING(db.NAME, 1, LEN(db.NAME))+”’,’ ELSE ‘, ‘ END+‘
 @filename’+CONVERT(VARCHAR, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY db.name ORDER BY sf.filename))+‘=”’+SUBSTRING(sf.filename, 1, LEN(sf.filename))+””
  FROM master..sysaltfiles sf
  JOIN master..sysdatabases db
      ON sf.dbid = db.dbid
 WHERE db.sid !=0×01
 ORDER BY db.name, sf.filename

This just generates the copy file statements in PowerShell that we will need to move the database files.

SELECT ‘
copy-item “‘+SUBSTRING(
saf.filename, 1, LEN(saf.filename))+‘” -destination “\\DestinationServerName\Drive$\’+SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(saf.filename, 1, LEN(saf.filename)), 4, LEN(saf.filename))+‘”‘
 FROM master.dbo.sysaltfiles saf
 JOIN master.dbo.sysdatabases db
ON saf.dbid = db.dbid
 WHERE db.sid !=0×01
ORDER BY db.name, saf.filename