By Jen Stirrup

Albert Einstein once said that the attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful, and then only for a short while. Fortunately, I believe that PowerShell is one of those rare melding of power and wisdom, since it can help a wide variety of people such as DBAs, sysadmins and so on, to work smarter rather than harder.

As pointed out by Brent Ozar this week, comments from TechEd North America attendees showed that is a real need for basic PowerShell training. I would agree with Brent that DBAs and SysAdmins do not realise how PowerShell can make their lives much easier. I’d go a bit further than this assertion, and I believe that SQL Server Business Intelligence developers may not see how PowerShell can help them too. In my experience, BI Developers don’t see the Power of PowerShell.

To help people to learn PowerShell, the great team at TechEd North America have videoed the ‘Windows PowerShell Crash Course’ by Don Jones and Jeffrey Snover, which is essential viewing for SQL Server people who are just starting out in PowerShell.

As goes the phrase, “If you have to do it twice, automate it”. If you are a DBA and want to know more about automation of tedious tasks that will help make your life easier, then I recommend Aaron Nelson’s TechEd video entitled: “The Dirty Dozen: Windows PowerShell Scripts for the Busy DBA’. Aaron’s session is jam-packed full of real-life advice on PowerShell that will make your life easier, and it’s always wise to automate tedious, repetitive tasks. Basically, Aaron did all the hard work so that you don’t have to! Well worth a watch, and you can see the video here.

If you are a Business Intelligence Developer, PowerShell can help you to automate tasks such as PowerPivot and Reporting Services deployment. If you’ve struggled with installing previous versions of Sharepoint and SQL Server, then I recommend that you take a look at the following links:

PowerPivot Configuration using PowerShell

PowerShell Commands to Install Sharepoint Reporting Services

I’ve used PowerShell to configure Sharepoint integration with PowerPivot and Reporting Services, and it made life very easy. If you are a Business Intelligence developer, then it’s worth a look since by automating tasks, it will save you time. In the previous SSRS example, it only takes a few command lines to install SSRS on Sharepoint Mode as a Single Server Farm, which is just amazing!

To summarise, PowerShell is one of the rare times where wisdom and power are merged. I hope that these resources are enough to pique your interest, and work smarter rather than harder!

Author Bio

Jen Stirrup

http://www.copperblueconsulting.com/

Jen Stirrup is a SQL Server MVP, with a Bachelors degree in Psychology and two Masters in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. Jen is joint owner of Copper Blue Consulting, delivering data and Business Intelligence solutions to global clients. Jen is a veteran SQL Server Developer with over 12 years SQL experience in delivering end-to-end Business Intelligence solution. Jen blogs for SQLServerPedia as well as her own blog. She is very active in many SQL Server User Groups in the UK, helping to run the SQLHerts group in England. Jen's focus is on the Microsoft BI stack, with a specific passion for Data Visualisation.