Search results matching tags 'Tips', 'Web', and 'SQL Server'

PowerShell PowerPack Download

BuckWoody — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:30:20 GMT

I read Jeffery Hicks’ article in this month’s Redmond Magazine on a new add-in for Windows PowerShell 2.0. It’s called the PowerShell Pack and it has a some great new features that I plan to put into place on my production systems as soon as I finished learning and testing them.

You can download the pack here if you have PowerShell 2.0. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I’ll blog about what I’m learning here in the near future, but you should check it out. The only issue I have with it right now is that you have to load a module and then use get-help to find out what it does, because I haven’t found a lot of other documentation so far.

The most interesting modules for me are the ones that can run a command elevated (in PSUserTools), the task scheduling commands (in TaskScheduler) and the file system checks and tools (in FileSystem). There’s also a way to create simple Graphical User Interface panels (in ). I plan to string all these together to install a management set of tools on my SQL Server Express Instances, giving the user “task buttons” to backup or restore a database, add or delete users and so on. Yes, I’ll be careful, and yes, I’ll make sure the user is allowed to do that.

For now, I’m testing the download, but I thought I would share what I’m up to. If you have PowerShell 2.0 and you download the pack, let me know how you use it.

Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing:

Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. Yes, there are always multiple ways to do things, and this script may not work in every situation, for everything. It’s just a script, people. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately.

PowerShell: Read Excel to Create Inserts

BuckWoody — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:09:36 GMT

I’m writing a series of articles on how to migrate “departmental” data into SQL Server. I also hold workshops on the entire process – from discovering that the data exists to the modeling process and then how to design the Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) process. Finally I write about (and teach) a few methods on actually moving the data.

One of those options is to use PowerShell. There are a lot of ways even with that choice, but the one I show is to read two columns from the spreadsheet and output statements that would insert the data using a stored procedure. Of course, you could re-write this as INSERT statements, out to a text file for bcp, or even use a database connection in the script to move the data directly from Excel into SQL Server.

This snippet won’t run on your system, of course – it assumes a Microsoft Office Excel 2007 spreadsheet located at c:\temp called VendorList.xlsx. It looks for a tab in that spreadsheet called Vendors. The statement that does the writing just uses one column: Vendor Code. Here’s the breakdown of what I’m doing:

In the first block, I connect to Microsoft Office Excel. That connection string is specific to Excel 2007, so if you need a different version you’ll need to look that up.

In the second block I set up a selection from the entire spreadsheet based on that tab. Note that if you’re only after certain data you shouldn’t get the whole spreadsheet – that’s just good practice.

In the next block I create the text I want, inserting the Vendor Code field as I go.

Finally I close the connection.

Enjoy!

$ExcelConnection= New-Object -com "ADODB.Connection"
$ExcelFile="c:\temp\VendorList.xlsx"
$ExcelConnection.Open("Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;`
Data Source=$ExcelFile;Extended Properties=Excel 12.0;")

$strQuery="Select * from [Vendors$]"
$ExcelRecordSet=$ExcelConnection.Execute($strQuery)

do {
Write-Host "EXEC sp_InsertVendors '" $ExcelRecordSet.Fields.Item("Vendor Code").Value "'"
$ExcelRecordSet.MoveNext()}
Until ($ExcelRecordSet.EOF)

$ExcelConnection.Close()

Script Disclaimer, for people who need to be told this sort of thing:

Never trust any script, including those that you find here, until you understand exactly what it does and how it will act on your systems. Always check the script on a test system or Virtual Machine, not a production system. All scripts on this site are performed by a professional stunt driver on a closed course. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Offer good for a limited time only. Keep out of reach of small children. Do not operate heavy machinery while using this script. If you experience blurry vision, indigestion or diarrhea during the operation of this script, see a physician immediately.

Tools and Processes for “Fitting it all in”

BuckWoody — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:42:05 GMT

Most data professionals I’ve met work in two modes: we plan for our day, and we react to the situations around us. I’m staring at my list of things that I need to do today right now, which is my planned work. Of course, I have no idea how much of that will really get done – it’s optimistic to be sure. On the other hand I have several systems I manage, and at any moment one of them or the people that interface with them may “change state” such that I need to give them some attention.

So how do I meld the two? Sometimes it can be quite difficult. I’m constantly working through my list in my mind, re-arranging what I’m focusing on based on what I perceive as the highest need. There are, however, some tools that I use each day to help me manage the workflow.

I use Outlook for tracking everything, since it has a task list (my primary tracking), a calendar, mail and so on. Also I can share the information, it’s on-line so I can see it anywhere, and I can even take it offline onto the plane this week when I fly out of town.

For the “ad-hoc” work, I rely on a script library, which I keep as SQL Server Management Studio projects. I keep those scripts and projects backed using Microsoft Live Mesh, which synchronizes those files (along with a few other critical files and my IE Favorites) across not only my laptop and primary systems, but even with my Virtual Machines.

Also for my SQL Server systems I use the Standard Reports I’ve blogged about here. I also use Greg Larsen’s Database Dashboard, and a series of PowerShell scripts that work across my systems, alerting me to any problems. Of course I’m using SQL Server Agent Jobs quite a bit, and I also use Alerts and some Perfmon automation for my monthly baselining.

So – is this your experience as well? Do you get driven by both planned and unplanned work? What tools and processes do you use to keep it all straight with your SQL Server Instances?

SQL Server Chargeback Strategies

BuckWoody — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:47:37 GMT

It seems the more things change the more they stay the same. One of the things I used to create on the mainframe system when I started years ago was a “charge-back” system. It tracked the time and resources used by the employees so that we could charge their department money for the time they spent on the (very expensive) mainframe.

When LAN systems came out, IT departments were just charged as a general expense. But these days, with shrinking budgets and deeper scrutiny on how resources are used, this idea has come back around. IT and Data Systems managers are keen to show the organization that it isn’t free to operate a database system.

From time to time I get asked if it is possible to do a chargeback system for SQL Server. And it is! In fact, I wrote a couple of articles on how to do that right here:

http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=sqlserver&seqNum=311

http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=sqlserver&seqNum=312

Code that Writes Code

BuckWoody — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:01:40 GMT

I have scripts that re-create my databases for testing and development purposes. But sometimes I want to take the data from a set of tables and move it as well – I could use SSIS, or a SELECT INTO statement, but what if I want to “re-set” the data to a point in time? In other words, load it with some “base data”?

I thought this might be a good place to demonstrate “code that writes code”. No, it isn’t that big of a deal – most DBAs know how to do this, but in the interest of those who don’t, I thought I would share.

So the end result I want in this case is to have a bunch of INSERT statements that contain my base data from a table where that data already exists. I could script out the table from SSMS and use the replacement parameter feature to fill out each record individually:

I have a table in one of my databases that I right-clicked to show the INSERT statement:

-- Person

INSERT

INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person]

([PersonName]

,[Street]

,[CityStateZip]

,[PersonType])

VALUES

(<PersonName, varchar(150),>

,<PersonStreet, varchar(100),>

,<PersonCityStateZip, varchar(255),>

,<PersonPersonType, varchar(100),>)

I can use the CTRL-SHIFT-M keys to replace the VALUES part with the values I want.

But I already had a copy of that “base” data before I turned the database over to the testers. Before I give it to them, I run code like this on each table – this one is for the Person table above (note that there should only be two lines here):

SELECT

'INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (' + CAST([PersonID] AS VARCHAR(5))+ ', ''' + [PersonName]+ ''', ''' + [Street]+ ''', ''' + [CityStateZip] + ''', ''' + [PersonType] + ''')'

FROM

[WAVS].[dbo].[Person]

When I run this code, I get these statements:

INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (1, 'Buck Woody', '123 Here Street', 'Covington, WA 98042', 'Vet')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (2, 'Jane Doe', '231 Function Ave', 'Redmond, WA 98052', 'Vet')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (3, 'Diane Wilson', '34251 Appt 3 7th Street', 'Seattle, WA 98061', 'Vet')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (4, 'John Kelso', '89734 Country Lane', 'Covington, WA 98042', 'Farmer')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (5, 'Marjorie Christian', '9893452 Changein Lane', 'Maple Valley, WA 98072', 'Farmer')
INSERT INTO [WAVS].[dbo].[Person] ([PersonID], [PersonName], [Street], [CityStateZip], [PersonType]) VALUES (6, 'Joanne Lister', '98904 Mapelwood Drive', 'Spokanne, WA 98045', 'Zoo Worker')

All I have to do is copy those statements into my “initialization” scripts just after the table creations, and then I can run them at will to create my new database (I know I can take a backup – I have reasons for not doing that).

There are two keys for writing code that writes code: The first is to simply use the single tick (') to write out what the end code should say (INSERT INTO, in my case) and then to use multiple ticks (''') when you want the code to contain the ticks themselves. This “escapes” the characters so that you can embed them. If you use SSMS to write your queries, the color coding will look as mine does above. You’ll also need to remember to CAST or CONVERT any data types that don’t concatenate (+) together well. In my case I had to CAST an integer value – but that’s OK, since it is only printing to the screen and I don’t include the ticks, the INSERT works fine.

You can use this method not only with INSERTS, but with lots of operations. And you can also even fire off the code once you create it – but that’s another post :)