The evolution of SQLPS CmdLets

The following table contains a list of all of the CmdLets and Functions released with SQLPS over the last few versions and highlights the evolution of the PowerShell support in SQL Server.

SQL 2008 R2	SQL 2012	SQL 2014
SQLSERVER:	SQLSERVER:	SQLSERVER:
Decode-SqlName	Add-SqlAvailabilityDatabase	Add-SqlAvailabilityDatabase
Encode-SqlName	Add-SqlAvailabilityGroupListenerStaticIp	Add-SqlAvailabilityGroupListenerStaticIp
Invoke-Sqlcmd	Backup-SqlDatabase	Add-SqlFirewallRule
	Convert-UrnToPath	Backup-SqlDatabase
	Decode-SqlName	Convert-UrnToPath
	Disable-SqlAlwaysOn	Decode-SqlName
	Enable-SqlAlwaysOn	Disable-SqlAlwaysOn
	Encode-SqlName	Enable-SqlAlwaysOn
	Get-SqlCredential	Encode-SqlName
	Invoke-PolicyEvaluation	Get-SqlCredential
	Invoke-Sqlcmd	Get-SqlDatabase
	Join-SqlAvailabilityGroup	Get-SqlInstance
	New-SqlAvailabilityGroup	Get-SqlSmartAdmin
	New-SqlAvailabilityGroupListener	Invoke-PolicyEvaluation
	New-SqlAvailabilityReplica	Invoke-Sqlcmd
	New-SqlCredential	Join-SqlAvailabilityGroup
	New-SqlHADREndpoint	New-SqlAvailabilityGroup
	Remove-SqlAvailabilityDatabase	New-SqlAvailabilityGroupListener
	Remove-SqlAvailabilityGroup	New-SqlAvailabilityReplica
	Remove-SqlAvailabilityReplica	New-SqlBackupEncryptionOption
	Remove-SqlCredential	New-SqlCredential
	Restore-SqlDatabase	New-SqlHADREndpoint
	Resume-SqlAvailabilityDatabase	Remove-SqlAvailabilityDatabase
	Set-SqlAvailabilityGroup	Remove-SqlAvailabilityGroup
	Set-SqlAvailabilityGroupListener	Remove-SqlAvailabilityReplica
	Set-SqlAvailabilityReplica	Remove-SqlCredential
	Set-SqlCredential	Remove-SqlFirewallRule
	Set-SqlHADREndpoint	Restore-SqlDatabase
	Suspend-SqlAvailabilityDatabase	Resume-SqlAvailabilityDatabase
	Switch-SqlAvailabilityGroup	Set-SqlAuthenticationMode
	Test-SqlAvailabilityGroup	Set-SqlAvailabilityGroup
	Test-SqlAvailabilityReplica	Set-SqlAvailabilityGroupListener
	Test-SqlDatabaseReplicaState	Set-SqlAvailabilityReplica
		Set-SqlCredential
		Set-SqlHADREndpoint
		Set-SqlNetworkConfiguration
		Set-SqlSmartAdmin
		Start-SqlInstance
		Stop-SqlInstance
		Suspend-SqlAvailabilityDatabase
		Switch-SqlAvailabilityGroup
		Test-SqlAvailabilityGroup
		Test-SqlAvailabilityReplica
		Test-SqlDatabaseReplicaState
		Test-SqlSmartAdmin

NOTE: This list was compiled from executing "Get-Command -Module SQLPS" (or similar) on the relevant versions.

In addition to this the SQLPS.exe Utility was introducted in SQL 2008 and is still available however it has been marked for depreciation in future releases. I have always recommended PowerShell peeps to use SQLPS Module which was introducted in SQL 2012 and still maintained today. The main reason that this has been my recommendation is that the SQLPS utility loads a PowerShell v2 shell and because I often use cmdlets other than just the SQL ones in my scripts I find it more efficient to develop for the latest release.

TSQL to suggest optimal MaxServerMemory value

A while ago a colleague of mine wrote a TSQL script to help with suggesting a MaxServerMemory value and a little less time ago we worked together to re-write that script for SQL 2012. While I haven't "checked" it against SQL 2014 the principals are the same, and the reason I am blogging it today is because I am always looking for the script or URL to direct people to so this post makes that easier :)

Of cause there is no black and white recommendation for MaxServerMemory as it is workload dependent. However this script can assist with understanding what that workload requirement is within a SQL Server Instance, please ensure you carefully consider all other memory needs of the server such as additional SQL Instances, and services such as AV, Backups, Monitoring, etc.

SET NOCOUNT ON;

DECLARE 
--@pg_size INT, 
@Instancename varchar(50),
--@RecMem int,
@MaxMem int,
@MaxRamServer int,
@sql varchar(max),
@SQLVersion tinyint


SELECT @SQLVersion = @@MicrosoftVersion / 0x01000000  -- Get major version

-- SELECT physical_memory_kb as ServerRAM_KB from sys.dm_os_sys_info
-- SELECT @pg_size = low from master..spt_values where number = 1 and type = 'E'
-- SELECT @Instancename = LEFT([object_name], (CHARINDEX(':',[object_name]))) FROM sys.dm_os_performance_counters WHERE counter_name = 'Buffer cache hit ratio'
PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
PRINT 'Optimal MaxServermemory Setting for SQL Server instance ' + @@SERVERNAME  + ' (' + CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('productversion') AS VARCHAR) + ' - ' +  SUBSTRING(@@VERSION, CHARINDEX('X',@@VERSION),4)  + ' - ' + CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('edition') AS VARCHAR) + ')'
PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'

IF @SQLVersion = 11
BEGIN
 PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
 PRINT 'Total Memory on the Server (MB)' 
 EXEC sp_executesql N'set @_MaxRamServer= (select physical_memory_kb/1024 from sys.dm_os_sys_info)', N'@_MaxRamServer int OUTPUT', @_MaxRamServer = @MaxRamServer OUTPUT
 Print @MaxRamServer
 PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
END
ELSE
IF @SQLVersion in (10,9)
BEGIN
 PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
 PRINT 'Total Memory on the Server (MB)' 
 EXEC sp_executesql N'set @_MaxRamServer= (select physical_memory_in_bytes/1024/1024 from sys.dm_os_sys_info)', N'@_MaxRamServer int OUTPUT', @_MaxRamServer = @MaxRamServer OUTPUT
 Print @MaxRamServer
 PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
END
ELSE 
BEGIN
 PRINT 'Script only supports SQL Server 2005 or later.'
 RETURN
END

--SELECT @RecMem=physical_memory_kb/1024 from sys.dm_os_sys_info

SET @MaxMem = CASE 
    WHEN @MaxRamServer < = 1024*2 THEN @MaxRamServer - 512  /*When the RAM is Less than or equal to 2GB*/
    WHEN @MaxRamServer < = 1024*4 THEN @MaxRamServer - 1024 /*When the RAM is Less than or equal to 4GB*/
    WHEN @MaxRamServer < = 1024*16 THEN @MaxRamServer - 1024 - Ceiling((@MaxRamServer-4096) / (4.0*1024))*1024 /*When the RAM is Less than or equal to 16GB*/

 -- My machines memory calculation
 -- RAM= 16GB
 -- Case 3 as above:- 16384 RAM-> MaxMem= 16384-1024-[(16384-4096)/4096] *1024
 -- MaxMem= 12106

    WHEN @MaxRamServer > 1024*16 THEN @MaxRamServer - 4096 - Ceiling((@MaxRamServer-1024*16) / (8.0*1024))*1024 /*When the RAM is Greater than or equal to 16GB*/
     END
 SET @sql='
EXEC sp_configure ''Show Advanced Options'',1;
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
EXEC sp_configure ''max server memory'','+CONVERT(VARCHAR(6), @maxMem)+';
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;'

PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'
PRINT 'Optimal MaxServerMemory Setting for this instance of SQL' 
Print (@sql) 
PRINT '------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------'

Ping back to Tara S. Jana's site http://sqlmasters.jimdo.com/scripts-tsql


Legal Stuff: As always the contents of this blog is provided “as-is”. The information, opinions and views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of any other company with affiliation to the products discussed. This includes any URLs or Tools. The author does not accept any responsibility from the use of the information or tools mentioned within this blog, and recommends adequate evaluation against your own requirements to measure suitability.

Demo preparation - Removing unwanted Schema's from AdventureWorks

Those of us who's roles require them to conduct demonstrations and presentations of SQL Server regularly will be familiar with the AdventureWorks databases. I must admit this has been my go to demo database for a while now. However some times the whole schema is just too much and all I really want is a subset of the schema for a demonstration.

The problem is because of the number of Constraints, Foreign Keys, and Views in the AdventureWorks schema this is no simple task (as it shouldn't be). I was faced with this issue today and so have created the following statements to help with generating the drop statements. These are based on the schema's that the objects belong to. For my needs I only wanted the HumanResources and Person schemas.

Important... backup first if you care about your data and..... DO NOT DO THIS IN PRODUCTION.....

--Constraints
SELECT sys.schemas.name as 'Schema'
 , sys.tables.name as 'Table'
 , sys.check_constraints.name as 'Constraint'
 , 'ALTER TABLE [' + sys.schemas.name + '].[' + sys.tables.name + '] DROP CONSTRAINT [' + sys.check_constraints.name + ']' AS 'Drop Stmt'
FROM sys.check_constraints
INNER JOIN sys.tables ON sys.tables.object_id = sys.check_constraints.parent_object_id
INNER JOIN sys.schemas ON sys.schemas.schema_id = sys.tables.schema_id
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'HumanResources'
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'Person'

 
--Foreign Keys
SELECT sys.schemas.name as 'Schema'
 , sys.tables.name as 'Table'
 , sys.foreign_keys.name as 'ForeignKey'
 , 'ALTER TABLE [' + sys.schemas.name + '].[' + sys.tables.name + '] DROP CONSTRAINT [' + sys.foreign_keys.name + ']' AS 'Drop Stmt'
FROM sys.foreign_keys
INNER JOIN sys.tables ON sys.tables.object_id = sys.foreign_keys.parent_object_id
INNER JOIN sys.schemas ON sys.schemas.schema_id = sys.tables.schema_id
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'HumanResources'
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'Person'


--Views
SELECT sys.schemas.name as 'Schema'
 , sys.views.name as 'View'
 , 'DROP VIEW [' + sys.schemas.name + '].[' + sys.views.name + ']' AS 'Drop Stmt'
FROM sys.views
INNER JOIN sys.schemas ON sys.schemas.schema_id = sys.views.schema_id
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'HumanResources'
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'Person'


--Tables
SELECT sys.schemas.name as 'Schema'
 , sys.tables.name as 'Table'
 , 'DROP TABLE ' + sys.schemas.name + '.' + sys.tables.name  AS 'Drop Stmt'
FROM sys.tables 
INNER JOIN sys.schemas ON sys.schemas.schema_id = sys.tables.schema_id
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'HumanResources'
 AND sys.schemas.name <> 'Person'
ORDER BY sys.schemas.name, sys.tables.name 

Legal Stuff: As always the contents of this blog is provided “as-is”. The information, opinions and views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of any other company with affiliation to the products discussed. This includes any URLs or Tools. The author does not accept any responsibility from the use of the information or tools mentioned within this blog, and recommends adequate evaluation against your own requirements to measure suitability.

Ready, Set, Go.....Format, Encrypt, and Prepare a Removable USB Drive using BitLocker and PowerShell

In my line of work protecting customer data is extremely important, and with that in mind unfortunately some times there is just no way to retrieve data for analysis without using a USB Drive. This presents some important requirements for any removable drive used in this way and for me that includes regularly performing three main tasks:

1. Format the drive (erase any previous customers data)
2. Encrypt the drive
3. Copy any tools etc back onto the drive

So recently I have been working on automating this with PowerShell, through the use of the BitLocker and Storage modules.

Introducing the USB Drive Wipe Prepare project.

What you will need:

• PowerShell 3+
• BitLocker Module (recommend at least Windows 8, Windows 2012)

While the complete script can be found here I will focus this post on the challenges I faced with building such solution so that if you are working on a similar project you can benefit from my hard work :)

The most challenging aspect of this was working with Bitlocker CmdLets, so they are my main focus.

The first step is to format the drive with Format-Volume.

$Result = Format-Volume -ObjectId $($Volume.ObjectId) -FileSystem $($Volume.FileSystem) -NewFileSystemLabel $($Volume.FileSystemLabel);

The next step is to encrypt the volume with BitLocker. This involves a number of steps.

1. Firstly, due to my employers GPO setting (and a best practice) I must add a recovery password key to the drive.

   $Result = Add-BitLockerKeyProtector -MountPoint "$($Volume.DriveLetter):" -RecoveryPasswordProtector
   
   

2. As part of this it is best practice to then make sure you have the Recovery Key saved off to a location. Earlier in the script I create a PSDrive to reference this location and simplify scripting.

   "Bitlocker Key for $($Volume.FileSystemLabel)`r`n `
   Identifier: $((Get-BitLockerVolume "$($Volume.DriveLetter):").KeyProtector.KeyProtectorId)`r`n `Key: $((Get-BitLockerVolume "$($Volume.DriveLetter):").KeyProtector.RecoveryPassword)" | Out-File -FilePath "BitLockerKeys:\$($Volume.FileSystemLabel).BitLockerKey.txt";
   
   

3. Next I enable BitLocker on the Removable Drive with a Password (effectively using BitLocker2Go)

   $Result = Enable-BitLocker -MountPoint "$($Volume.DriveLetter):" -EncryptionMethod Aes256 -UsedSpaceOnly -Password $BitLockerPassword -PasswordProtector;
   
   

4. As the encryption process can take some time the next part of my script checks the status of the protection with

   while ((Get-BitLockerVolume -MountPoint "$($Volume.DriveLetter):").EncryptionPercentage -lt 100)
   ....
   
   

After encrypting the drive my script then copies files/folders which I have stored in a common path on my laptop for use on most customer engagements. This is a specific need for my line of work however the functionality could be used for anything. I retrieve the path from a XML configuration file during the Begin block of the script, and if that file doesn't exist then it is created. The user can also supply a "-Setup" switch parameter to force the script to prompt for the configuration settings and rebuild the config XML file.

This script is provided "as is" however should you be performing similar operations around Encrypting removable drives this may help you towards your solution.

As mentioned above the complete script can be found on the CodePlex project https://usbdrivepreptool.codeplex.com/




Legal Stuff: As always the contents of this blog is provided “as-is”. The information, opinions and views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of any other company with affiliation to the products discussed. This includes any URLs or Tools. The author does not accept any responsibility from the use of the information or tools mentioned within this blog, and recommends adequate evaluation against your own requirements to measure suitability.
 

Format Operator vs Format Parameter for Date Time

So most of my PowerShell scripts include logging or export functionality which requires the current date/time to be in a particular format. So this got me thinking, just which method actually performs better.

Get-Date Format Parameter

Command:

Get-Date -Format {yyyyMMddhhmmss}

Individual Times (ms):  0.9507, 0.3538, 0.3797, 0.2996, 0.2996, 0.3575, 0.1991, 0.2011, 0.1297, 0.1625
Overall Avg (ms): 0.33333

Format Operator

Command:

"{0:yyyy}{0:MM}{0:dd}{0:hh}{0:mm}{0:ss}" -f (Get-Date)

Individual Times (ms):  1.6881, 0.4051, 1.2866, 0.7377, 0.1761, 0.4794, 0.9889, 0.7307, 0.5377, 0.8777
Overall Avg (ms): 0.7908


And the winner is....... Get-Date with the Format parameter, most likely because the formatting is conducted early in the stack, (i.e. closer to the .Net framework layer). However if you look at some of the individual results there isn't much in it at times.


The full script used to perform this test is as follows:

[array]$Results = @();

for ($i=0; $i -lt 10; $i++)
{
   $Results += Measure-Command {
      Get-Date -Format {yyyyMMddhhmmss}
   } | select TotalMilliseconds;
   #helps give real results by letting the system pause for a moment
   Start-Sleep -Seconds 1;
}
Write-Host "Get-Date format paramter results"
$Results

[array]$Results = @();
for ($i=0; $i -lt 10; $i++)
{
   $Results += Measure-Command {
      "{0:yyyy}{0:MM}{0:dd}{0:hh}{0:mm}{0:ss}" -f (Get-Date)
   } | select TotalMilliseconds;
   #helps give real results by letting the system pause for a moment
   Start-Sleep -Seconds 1;
}
Write-Host "Format operator results"
$Results