The first edition of the PSPowerHour is in the books and it looks like it was a big success. This one was dbatools-heavy but I chalk that up to the dbatools community having lots of free time because we’ve automated so many of our tasks :)
Overall Impressions I signed in about half an hour ahead of the webcast and was the first one there. Shortly thereafter, I was joined by Michael Lombardi (twitter, then Jess Pomfret (blog|twitter) and Chrissy LeMaire (blog|twitter).
A few weeks ago, I teased good news.
just got some good news. can't wait to share it
— Andy Levy (@ALevyInROC) July 20, 2018 One person hypothesized that I’m joining Microsoft (it seems to be the thing to do lately) and another jumped to the conclusion that I must be pregnant. Both creative responses, but not quite correct.
I’ll be at PASS Summit 2018!
So much to do!
Pick some sessions Make my checklist of #sqlfamily I need to see Find a way to pack lighter (I think the iPad will stay home this time) Up my selfie game Get back into shape for #sqlrun Print up some more dbatools ribbons Figure out the social media photo situation (see above, “Up my selfie game”) If you’re attending Summit, let’s meet up!
It’s official! I will be speaking at the inaugural PowerHour online lightning demo event on Tuesday, August 21st at 2200 UTC. I’ll be demoing Better, Safer SQL Queries from PowerShell.
If you’re working with SQL Server from PowerShell, either as a DBA, analyst, or anyone else running queries, you’ve probably used Invoke-SqlCmd. But depending on how you’re building your queries, this can be error-prone or a huge security exposure! With the help of the dbatools module, I’ll show you how to write and run these queries better and safer - and make them easier to work into your scripts to boot.
Earlier this week, the PowerHour was announced. What is it? It’s kind of like a virtual user group. One hour, 6(ish) lightning demos (10 minutes or less), centered on PowerShell. All community-sourced and driven - anyone can submit a proposal for a demo and if accepted, you’ll be slotted into an available spot.
They’ve already set up a YouTube Channel so you can either watch live or catch up later on, and the whole deal is being organized and managed through GitHub.
This week I had a user come to me asking about how fields were defined on a few tables he was using in writing some reports. Long story short, he’s been tasked with writing some new reports and updating existing ones, but he doesn’t have visibility to the database itself so he’s left with the “ok, let’s try this” approach and then reading error messages to debug when things go sideways.
I wrote a post over on the dbatools website about how to get involved with improving comment-based help
Working on the CBH is a great way to get started with the dbatools project, even (especially) if you’re not a PowerShell expert or MVP-level DBA. Getting everything clean and consistent in the CBH is an important step on the road to 1.0. Along the way, you’ll pick up on how dbatools is put together, discover functions that you can use in your day-to-day work, and get a feel for PowerShell best practices.
This tweet showed up in the dbatools Slack channel Friday afternoon.
Just did my first Pull Request to "contribute" to @psdbatools. Granted, the code change was a single line of code that was spoon-fed to me... but it's still my 1st PR ever! Life. Changed. Special thanks to @cl for the spoon, and @wsmelton for the PR assistance. :) #dbatools
— John G Hohengarten #BlackLivesMatter (@wsuhoey) November 17, 2017 My first thought was “huh?
I registered for Summit about a month before getting actively involved in the dbatools project, so when I saw the team was running a pre-con and I was going to meet them, I was pretty excited. It was amazing getting to meet and hang out with Chrissy, Rob, CK, Shane, Jess, John, Shawn, Aaron, Ben, Kiril, Shane, and Drew (sorry if I forgot anyone!), even if it was only for a moment.
I’ve been a proponent of dbatools for close to a year now and even contributed to the project, but surprisingly haven’t been a heavy user of it. Mostly due to a lack of opportunity. I’m aware of many of the functions by virtue of working on the built-in documentation and following the project and presentations about it.
So when the need arose to move a development/test instance of SQL Server from a VM onto a physical server, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
One of the (many) fun things to do at PASS Summit is to check out the ribbons people have attached to their badges. Some are witty or goofy, others informational, others technical, and still more that let you express how you identify with a community within the community.
To celebrate dbatools and the awesome team & community around it, two limited edition badges will be available from/distributed by me and a handful of other folks all week at Summit.