SQL Server Agent implements a job subsystem that allows users to directly run PowerShell scripts in SQL Server Agent. Internally this is implemented by reusing the SQLPS.EXE shell stub (which is another shape of POWERSHELL.EXE, but preconfigured for SQL...

A handy little trick to quickly get much more error information out of PowerShell...

I was recently interviewed on RunAs Radio on the new Powershell extensions that we developed for SQL Server 2008. If you want to learn more about SQL Server Powershell download the podcast here : http://www.runasradio.com/default.aspx?showNum=75 ...

When you start using the SQL Server Powershell extensions, you will find there are not a whole lot of cmdlets. The expectation is indeed that Powershell support means: cmdlets for every administrative operation you can perform. Did we miss something here...

Jeffrey Snover posted a very clear article about minishells and SQL Server's use of it: http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2008/06/23/sql-minishells.aspx Jeffrey is Powershell's Architect, well respected in the Powershell community, and it...

I found this ping-back on my previous blog post which gives a good overview of one very useful cmdlet that we ship with the Powershell extensions that SQL Server 2008 will deliver. A very helpful article one of the SQL Server MVPs, Lara Rubbelke , on...

I am very excited that SQL Server will ship with a pretty solid first release of Powershell extensions with SQL Server 2008. The SQL Server Powershell extensions deliver on a vision that we’ll expand on in the next releases to come. So what’s in this release of SQL Server Powershell?...

Every now and the question comes up how to programmatically modify the service account or password of SQL Server. There basically two ways to accomplish this, using SMO, or WMI. This article shows you how to use WMI and VBScript to accomplish this task...

Euan pointed me to an interesting article about the use of Monad together with SMO . Those who know me well, know I am somewhat of a scripting biggot and still install Cygwin on all of my boxes as I cannot live without bash, awk, perk, sed, expr and the...

I'm sure there are lots of coworkers blogging about this. We're done with SQL Server 2005 and it's a very interesting and good feeling. Having worked 5 year on the project, many long days, many weekends, having to fight many battles, and at the same time...

With much of the SQL Server 2005 devcelopment behind us, I am starting to have some more time to post some SMO samples . Most of these are inspired on questions in the beta newsgroups or the SMO/DMO forum . Additionally, SQL Server 2005 ships with...

The SMO session was on today! Wow the Euro-crowd is tough! (which I heard uttered by various speakers after being shell shocked by unexpected scores) Jet lag and lack of sleep last few days made this session a hard nut to crack. (the proverb "I can do...

Granted, I was asking for this. When we were starting the development of the follow-up version of (here comes the culprit) the new SQL Server Web Data Administrator , Euan was still my boss and asked me to change the name. Long story short, Shipping SQL...

Visual Studio .NET 2003 shipped a web based sample application for management of SQL Server , based on ASP.NET and SQL-DMO. We're currently working on an updated version of that tool. This is a quick list of the things that we change: Revamped UI...

In an interview with Gert Drapers , SQLCMD was mentioned as SQL Server 2005's Easter Egg (Gert: "one of the biggest productivity gains for DBA’s in terms of automation"). I hope that I can pull this feature somewhat out of obscurity :-) Watch the SQL...

Table and Index partitioning is one if the new SQL Server 2005 features that willl improve life for the DBA and application developer quite a bit. It allows Indexes and Tables to be partitioned across multiple file groups. Partitioned tables and indexes...

I just finished the Scripting in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 webcast. Thanks all for being online (and also thank you MVP's for answering questions!) I was a little nervous doing this (it's a big deck with lots of demos) but I think it went quite OK...

In a previous article I have showed how a SMO object can be serialized into a Transact-SQL script, which allows you to recreate the object. What if you want to have the script that is emitted when you changed one or more properties of an object? In that...

Let's first clarify what I mean by "scripting". It often happens during talks or when I explain SMO fundamentals that eyes gloss over, shortly after which the "what * do you mean by scripting" question pops up (replace the * with your favorite combination...

There are several ways of controlling connections in SMO -- you can control pretty much any aspect of a SMO connection. Pooled connections Let's take a look at a typical way how you would obtain a connection using a simple C# sample: ...

In the previous post I provided you with a fundamental tool to minimize the amount of SQL statements emitted and therefore limit expensive network round-trips (and SQL statements) using the Server.SetDefaultInitFields() method. In this post I will provide...

Get started with SQL Server WMI Provider...

SQL Server Management Objects -- performance tuning part 1...

Moving over my blog from sqljunkies. At sqljunkies I had made a start with some background articles about SQL Server Management Objects and I have a whole bunch of articles lined up for this blog. A quick introduction -- I moved from The Netherlands to...