Tag Archives: SQL community

#tsql2sday – Giving Back – Reprise

Posted on by

Itsql2sdayt’s TSQL Tuesday again! This month our host is Riley Major (b/t) and the subject is Giving Back. He’s given us two options here (as well as the side option of your favorite 2017 improvement). Pick a way that you’d like to give back to the community and talk about it, or if you already give back,  tell us how and why you started.

 

There will be a lot of excellent posts on this subject and one of the things that I like is that you can go to http://tsqltuesday.com and look up all of the entries which means that for a particular topic you can find a bunch of blog posts from different angles (I miss-typed that as angels first and yes they are all angels!) whether it is career improvement or technical like say Extended Events it is all there waiting for you 🙂

I wrote about giving back in 2014 when I was about to help organise SQL Saturday Exeter for the first time. Last year I blogged about a few of the wonderful people who made a difference to me. So this post is a little about how I give back and also hopefully some hints that can help you to do the same as well.

How

There are so many ways that you can give back to the community as Riley’s post shows.

Sharing your knowledge is a good way. I share my knowledge in blog posts and in sessions at user groups and at conferences. You can too.

From beginner, introductory posts and talks to expert level deep dives every single one of us has learned from the blog posts that other people have spent their time and effort creating.

YOU can share your knowledge, even if you have only been using a technology for a few months, you have knowledge of the things you have learned and the things that would have made it easier. Write a post about those things.

Answering questions is another way. You can do this on Stack Overflow, SQL Server Central, PowerShell.Org , Reddit, Facebook , on Twitter using the #sqlhelp or #PowerShellHelp or just in person. I try to answer questions when I see them on twitter or in the SQL Community Slack

Mentoring or just providing feedback to people. You can offer to proof read blog posts or abstract submissions or you can listen to peoples presentations. I do this and it is a lot of fun

I also share my knowledge via my GitHub. All of my presentations slides and code are available as well as other code that I use. I also contribute to open-source projects such as dbatools and dbachecks.  You can do this too. You could open an issue for an improvement or bug. You can contribute your code, even if you are not confident writing the code you can fix spelling mistakes or add documentation., everything helps

You can help with organisation of events. I have helped to organise the PowerShell Europe Conference, PSDay.UK, SQL Saturday Exeter, SQL SouthWest user group, PASS PowerShell Virtual Group. I have also helped with session choices for a number of other events like SQL Grillen and SQLGLA and I have volunteered at many events from SQL Saturdays to SQL Bits. Everything from setting up and tearing down (IE moving heavy things and cleaning up rubbish) to sitting on the information desk, giving out badges, making sure the speakers are on time in their sessions. You can do this too. Just ask the organisers of the events what they need. It is better to do this prior to the event than on the day but I am sure all help is welcomed. Richard Munn and I talked (waffled?) about this at SQL Bits this year

If you would like to be considered as a volunteer for next years SQL Bits please email helpers at sqlbits.com

Why

So why did I start giving back?

I wanted to be useful. I saw the amount of work that Jonathan and Annette were doing organising SQL Saturday Exeter and SQL South West. I hoped that I could help them with that.

Why do I carry on doing it?

Because it is fun 🙂 I enjoy speaking, I enjoy sharing my knowledge and talking to people

That is good but there is more to it as well

You learn so much by writing a presentation or a blog post because you will do research.

You will learn even more when people ask you questions in your sessions or leave comments on your blog posts and you have to go and find the answers

You learn new and useful skills and demonstrate your knowledge to potential employers

My blog is a scrapbook of knowledge that I go back to and use all the time (and sometimes I forget that I have written something and find my own post in the search results!)

But the most important reason is that I feel that it pays back some of the benefit that I have gained from all of those people who’s time and effort I made use of for free when I was learning and continue to do so to this day. All of those blog posts and videos and presentations that I consumed have helped to make me the technician I am today. I have skills and abilities that I would not have without them all and by giving back I hope that I am enabling others to develop and see the benefit of sharing so that they will continue to do so in the future and I can learn from them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professional and Proficient PowerShell: From Writing Scripts to Developing Solutions at PASS Summit

Posted on by

PASS Summit is the largest conference for technical professionals who leverage the Microsoft Data Platform. PASS Summit 2018 is happening November 5th – 9th 2018 in Seattle. It is an amazing conference. I attended last year and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. It is a whole week of opportunities to learn from and network with people from all over the world involved in Data Platform.

The pre-cons have just been announced so go and take a look at the Pre-Con Page to see the wonderful full day learning opportunities you can get this year.

I am immensely honoured to say that on Tuesday 6th November you can join me for a whole day of PowerShell learning 

I will pass on as much of the skills and knowledge I have learnt using PowerShell with SQL Server (and other technologies) that I can fit in one day. I want you to leave feeling more confident in using PowerShell to automate away all of the mundane. In particular I want to enable you to have the skills to write professional PowerShell solutions.

You can read more and sign up here

If you have any questions about this session please feel free to contact me. You can use any of the various social media sites, or via the contact page or in person if you see me.

 

TSQL2sDay – Folks Who Have Made a Difference

Posted on by

tsql2sday

This months TSQL2sDay is an absolute brilliant one hosted by Ewald Cress

the opportunity to give a shout-out to people (well-known or otherwise) who have made a meaningful contribution to your life in the world of data.

Fabulous, fabulous idea Ewald, I heartily approve

Now this is going to be difficult. There are so many wonderful people in the #SQLFamily who are so gracious and generous and willing to share. I am also lucky enough to be part of the PowerShell community which is also equally filled with amazing people. I do not want to write a novel or a massive list of people, I don’t want to risk missing someone out (Ewald, I’m beginning to question whether ‘fabulous’ should become ‘tricky and challenging’ !!)

So after consideration I am only going to talk about 4 wonderful people and the effect they have had on my life, my career and my community involvement but know that I truly appreciate the input that all of the peoples have had and the amazing friendships that I have all over the world. There is no order to this list, these are 4 of the people in equal first with all the other people I haven’t mentioned. This post should really scroll sideways. Interestingly I noticed after writing this that they are in reverse chronological order in my life!

The Hair!

At PASS Summit this year many people came up to me and said “Hey, Beard ……..” The first person who called me that is an amazing inspiring bundle of talented energy called Chrissy LeMaire

Many moons ago, we exchanged messages over social media and email, chatted after a PowerShell Virtual Group presentation and then one day she asked me to join as an organiser for the Virtual Group.

When dbatools was in it’s infancy she asked me to help and since then has given me interesting challenges to overcome from introducing Pester and appveyor to the dbatools development process to creating continuous delivery to our private PowerShell gallery for our summit pre-con forcing me to learn and implement new and cool things. Our shared love of enabling people to do cool things with PowerShell is so much fun to do 🙂

She is so generous and giving of her time and knowledge and has an amazing capability to get things done, whether by herself or by encouraging and supporting others.

We have presented at many conferences together, both SQL and PowerShell and we have the best of times doing so. It is so refreshing to find someone that I am comfortable presenting with and who has the same passion and energy for inspiring people. (It’s also fun to occasionally throw her off her stride mid-presentation (Thank you Cathrine 🙂 )

I am proud to call her my buddy. You are so inspiring Chrissy.

Thank you Ma’am

Amazing Couple

A few months after becoming a DBA I was the only DBA at the company as the others all left for various reasons. I was drowning in work, had no idea what I should be doing. I knew I didn’t have the knowledge and during that time I began to be aware of the SQL community and all the fine resources that it provides.

I then found out about a local user group and emailed the leader Jonathan Allen (He surprised me by reminding of this during our pre-con in Singapore a couple of weeks ago!) Jonathan and his wife Annette run the SQL South West user group and are also members of the SQL Bits committee, Annette is also the regional mentor for the UK. They give an awful amount of time and effort to the SQL Community in the UK. It took a few months before I even had the time to attend a user group and in those early days they both answered my naive questions and passed on so much of their technical knowledge and methodology to me and I soaked it up.

Later on, they invited me to help them to organise SQL Saturday Exeter, encouraged me to speak, gave me fabulous feedback and pointers to improve, encouraged me to volunteer for SQL Bits and have been incredibly supportive. I love them both very much. Neither like having their photo taken so I can’t embarrass them too much.

Next time you see them give them a hug.

Thank you J and A

The First One

Andrew Pruski dbafromthecold and SQL Containers Man

At the time I am talking about he was not a member of the SQL Community although he possessed all of the qualities that describe such a person. Now he is an established blogger and speaker and attender of SQL events.

He is one of the DBA’s who left me on my own!! He is the first SQL DBA I ever worked with. The person who taught me all those important first bits of knowledge about being a SQL DBA. He imparted a great amount of knowledge in a few months with great patience to an eager newbie.

More than that, he showed me that to succeed in IT, you need to do more than just an everyday 9-5, that it requires more time than that. He instilled in me (without realising it) a work ethic and a thirst for doing things right and gaining knowledge that I still have today. He inspired me when I was faced with trying to understand the mountain of knowledge that is SQL Server that it was possible to learn enough. He taught me the importance of testing things, of understanding the impact of the change that is being made. He showed me how to respond in crises and yet was still willing to share and teach during those times.

He has had a greater impact on me than he will ever know and I have told him this privately many times. I will never forgive him for abandoning me all those years ago and yet that is a large part of what made me who I am today. I was forced to have to deal with looking after a large estate by myself and needed to learn to automate fast and he just about left me with the skills to be able to accomplish that.

Massive shout out to you fella. Thank you

All the Others

Seriously, there are so many other people who I wish I could thank.

Every single one of you who blogs or speaks or records webinars that I have watched – thank you.

All of the organisers who ensure that events happen – thank you

All of the volunteers who assist at those events – thank you.

That group of amazing European speakers at the first SQL Saturday Exeter I attended. The cool group, my wife still reminds me of how I came home from that event so inspired by them. How incredibly generous and welcoming they were and how they welcomed me into their group even though I didn’t feel worthy to share their table. They taught me about the lack of egos and humbleness that defines the SQL family. I am proud to call them my friends now. Thank You (You know who you are)

We have a great community, may its ethos continue for a long time.

2016 – That was a Year :-)

Posted on by

Its the time of year for reflection and I have had the most amazing 2016, I am blessed that I love what I do so much. I thoroughly enjoy writing and talking and sharing and commenting and supporting and cherishing all the SQL and PowerShell things. I wrote about using Power Bi to display my checkins. I only started this in June and this is where I have been 🙂

swarm

I learnt about Pester and ended the year incorporating it into dbatools and dbareports. I also started using GitHub It is quite surprising to me how much time I now spend using both. I also had to start learning DSC for the client I was working with because as ‘the PowerShell guy’ I was the one who could the easiest. I learnt things and then forgot them causing me to find this Pester post via google later in the year!! (That’s a big reason for blogging by the way)

Early in the year we organised with SQL Saturday Exeter

Helping to organise a SQL Saturday is a lot of fun, especially when you do it with good friends, but choosing sessions is by far the most challenging part of it for me. I could have chosen at least 60 of these sessions and I know people were disappointed not to have been chosen. I was also the first person many saw at SQL Bits in Liverpool manning the front of house and getting asked the best question ever

The Beard says

When you go to an event –  Say thank you to the organisers and volunteers

and a TERRIBLE thing happened – I broke my DBA Team mug

WP_20160223_07_51_03_Pro.jpg

Luckily the fine folk at redgate sorted me out with a replacement from deep in the stores somewhere and gave it to me at SQL Saturday Exeter 🙂 Thank you.

I spoke at the PowerShell Conference Europe and met and made some great friends which lead to me speaking at the PowerShell Monday in Munich and the Dutch PowerShell Usergroup. SQL Saturday Dublin was a blast, its a wonderful city, Manchester had a whole PowerShell Track 🙂 and Cambridge was memorable for the appalling journey as well as the chance to share a stage with Chrissy. PowerShell Conference Asia in the sovereign city-state of Singapore was such a good event and place. Lastly of course was Slovenia with its fantastic Christmas lights and awesome event organisation. I visited some user groups too. Southampton run by my good friends John Martin and Steph Middleton Congratulations to John on his first MVP award yesterday, Cardiff for the Return of the Battle of the Beards with Terry McCann and Tobiasz Koprowski where the projector threw its toys out of the pram and Birmingham in the school hall which was slightly chilly (theres a joke there for some people)

Amazing things happened

We created https://sqlps.io/vote and https://sqlps.io/ssms and https://sqlps.io/powerbi to enable anyone to influence Microsoft and help to improve the PowerShell SQL experience

and lo and behold there was a new sqlserver module 🙂

I was also invited by Aaron and Chrissy to become an officer for the PASS PowerShell Virtual Chapter oh and we made https://sqlps.io/slack to enable people to talk about all things Data Platform – Another addition to my life that I didn’t have at the beginning of the year. I spend a lot of time in there in the #dbatools and #dbareports channels and have made some fantastic friends. Chrissy and I created the SQL Community Collaborative GitHub team and added dbatools and dbareports and even more friendships were born

And that’s the biggest and bestest thing about this year. Some amazing new friends and spending time with all my other friends. I started writing out a list but was terrified I would have missed someone out, so to all my friends

THANK YOU for a brilliant 2016 and 2017 shall be just as good 🙂

Here are a few of my pics from the year with a lot of my friends

Terry waving hishands
John in Dublin
The PowerShell track in Manchester
Having a meal in Manchester
Big John doing indexes with cups in Exeter
Thank you Microsoft
Bearded Buddy Tobiasz
Munich with the scripting wife and Jeff
PowerShell Monday in Munich
Mr Snover joined us in Munich via Skype
Jeff giving out prizes in Munich
Drinks after Munich
Gael met me in London when I had an hour to spare.
Me and the smiliest PowerShell man in the world Irwin
Dutch PowerShell User Group
Dutch PowerShell User Group
Lunch at Dutch PowerShell User Group
Cambridge breakfast room!!
SQL Saturday Cambridge
Two Cajuns and an Englishman
Awesome Chrissy in Cambridge
Chrissy and Deep Fat Fryer in Cambridge
Two great beards its SQL WareWolf
We had a fabulous meal in Cambridge. Me, Chrissy,Lu and Dan
A great place to work
SQL relay Cardiff – there were people sitting on the floor
Not the session you were expecting by Richard and I in Cardiff at SQL Relay
SQL relay Reading
The first Sentry One Prize at SQL Relay in Reading
I met some apes in Singapore
A fabuilous evening natter
Matt and Milton – 2 of the PS Conf Asia organisers in the AWS building
Jason Yoder pre-con in Singapore
The Shy and Retiring Jason at Singapore User Group
Speakers on the metro in Singapore
PowerShell team in Singapore
Flynn talked containers in Singapore
Trevor Hess
An evening with friends in Singapore
Angel, June and Kenneth
A great buddy Mathias
The coolest man in Singapore Jaap
Aaron during the PowerShell 10th Anniversary
Even Jake the dog watched the PowerShell 10th Anniversary
Jonathan 🙂
Southampton User group in December
Alex was disappointed
The glitter beard in Slovenia. even the next day there was glitter on many speakers
A win for Andre and Alex
Slovenia Sessions
The Speakers in Ljubljana being ‘taught’ by Matija
Andre showing magic in Slovenia
ljubljana is beautiful
John is demonstrating indexes with cups in Exeter
Andrew the man who taught me
John in Dublin
My amazing wife made me this PowerShell rug
Manning the front of house at SQL Bits with armed protection
My buddy Mark
SQL Bits
Andre didnt put much thought into his costume. I try not to think about Kevins!!
Sensible times at SQL Bits
Terry goes old school
Errm!!! Buck being Buck
Inside the space bubbles at SQL Bits
Happy Birthday Alex
Yay its Andre
Steph of the Locke
Is it the new Karla? No its the original Catherine
Just a chat with a few friends
PSConfEU keynote
PSConfEU
I borrowed Christians Hat
Is he French? Is he English? He’s just Gael and I love him
Northern people are strange (I’m allowed to say that I’m northern too!!)
Jeff with the EU flag
The amazing opening for PSConfEU
Return of battle of the beards with Tobiasz and Terry
My PSConfEU shirt
Terry enjoying the SQL Sat Exeter food
The SQL South West Flag hanging proud
The SanDisk competition at SQL Sat Exeter was brilliant
Choosing sessions is tough
SQL Sat Exeter
The waizardry of Terry McCann
Speaking at Southampton in a shirt and tie
SQL Sat Exeter
Disaster! My DBA Team mug smashed
SQL Sat Exeter

 

Remove-SQLDatabaseSafely My First Contribution to DBATools

Posted on by

What is DBA Tools?

A collection of modules for SQL Server DBAs. It initially started out as ‘sqlmigration’, but has now grown into a collection of various commands that help automate DBA tasks and encourage best practices.

You can read more about here and it is freely available for download on GitHub I thoroughly recommend that you watch this quick video to see just how easy it is to migrate an entire SQL instance in one command (Longer session here )

Installing it is as easy as

Install-Module dbatools

which will get you over 80 commands . Visit https://dbatools.io/functions/ to find out more information about them

cmdlets

The journey to Remove-SQLDatabaseSafely started with William Durkin b | t who presented to the SQL South West User Group  (You can get his slides here)

Following that session  I wrote a Powershell Script to gather information about the last used date for databases which I blogged about here and then a T-SQL script to take a final backup and create a SQL Agent Job to restore from that back up which I blogged about here The team have used this solution (updated to load the DBA Database and a report instead of using Excel) ever since and it proved invaluable when a read-only database was dropped and could quickly and easily be restored with no fuss.

I was chatting with Chrissy LeMaire who founded DBATools b | t about this process and when she asked for contributions in the SQL Server Community Slack I offered my help and she suggested I write this command. I have learnt so much. I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend working on projects collaboratively to improve your skills. It is amazing to work with such incredible professional PowerShell people.

I went back to the basics and thought about what was required and watched one of my favourite videos again. Grant Fritcheys Backup Rant

I decided that the process should be as follows

  1. Performs a DBCC CHECKDB
  2. Database is backed up WITH CHECKSUM
  3. Database is restored with VERIFY ONLY on the source
  4. An Agent Job is created to easily restore from that backup
  5. The database is dropped
  6. The Agent Job restores the database
  7. performs a DBCC CHECKDB and drops the database for a final time

This (hopefully) passes all of Grants checks. This is how I created the command

I check that the SQL Agent is running otherwise we wont be able to run the job. I use a while loop with a timeout like this

$agentservice = Get-Service -ComputerName $ipaddr -Name $serviceName
if ($agentservice.Status -ne 'Running') {
    $agentservice.Start()
    $timeout = new-timespan -seconds 60
    $sw = [diagnostics.stopwatch]::StartNew()
    $agentstatus = (Get-Service -ComputerName $ipaddr -Name $serviceName).Status
    while ($dbStatus -ne 'Running' -and $sw.elapsed -lt $timeout) {
        $dbStatus = (Get-Service -ComputerName $ipaddr -Name $serviceName).Status
    }
}

There are a lot more checks and logic than I will describe here to make sure that the process is as robust as possible. For example, the script can exit after errors are found using DBCC CHECKDB or continue and label the database backup file and restore job appropriately. Unless the force option is used it will exit if the job name already exists. We have tried to think of everything but if something has been missed or you have suggestions let us know (details at end of post)

The only thing I didn’t add was a LARGE RED POP UP SAYING ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DROP THIS DATABASE but I considered it!!

Performs a DBCC CHECKDB

Running DBCC CHECKDB with Powershell is as easy as this

$sourceserver = New-Object Microsoft.SQLServer.Management.Smo.Server "ServerName"
$db = $sourceserver.databases[$dbname]
$null = $db.CheckTables('None')

you can read more on MSDN

Database is backed up WITH CHECKSUM

Stuart Moore is my go to for doing backups and restores with SMO

I ensured that the backup was performed with checksum like this

$backup = New-Object -TypeName Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Backup
$backup.Action = [Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SMO.BackupActionType]::Database
$backup.BackupSetDescription = "Final Full Backup of $dbname Prior to Dropping"
$backup.Database = $dbname
$backup.Checksum = $True

Database is restored with VERIFY ONLY on the source

I used SMO all the way through this command and performed the restore verify only like this

$restoreverify = New-Object 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Restore'
$restoreverify.Database = $dbname
$restoreverify.Devices.AddDevice($filename, $devicetype)
$result = $restoreverify.SqlVerify($sourceserver)

An Agent Job is created to easily restore from that backup

First I created a category for the Agent Job

Function New-SqlAgentJobCategory {
    param ([string]$categoryname,
        [object]$jobServer)
    if (!$jobServer.JobCategories[$categoryname]) {
        if ($Pscmdlet.ShouldProcess($sourceserver, "Creating Agent Job Category $categoryname")
            {
                try {
                    Write-Output "Creating Agent Job Category $categoryname"
                    $category = New-Object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Agent.JobCategory
                    $category.Parent = $jobServer
                    $category.Name = $categoryname
                    $category.Create()
                    Write-Output "Created Agent Job Category $categoryname"
                }
                catch {
                    Write-Exception $_
                    throw "FAILED : To Create Agent Job Category $categoryname - Aborting"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

and then generated the TSQL for the restore step by using the script method on the Restore SMO object

This is how to create an Agent Job

$job = New-Object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Agent.Job $jobServer, $jobname
$job.Name = $jobname
$job.OwnerLoginName = $jobowner
$job.Description = "This job will restore the $dbname database using the final backup located at $filename"

and then to add a job step to run the restore command

$jobStep = new-object Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Agent.JobStep $job, $jobStepName $jobStep.SubSystem = 'TransactSql' # 'PowerShell' 
$jobStep.DatabaseName = 'master' 
$jobStep.Command = $jobStepCommmand 
$jobStep.OnSuccessAction = 'QuitWithSuccess' 
$jobStep.OnFailAction = 'QuitWithFailure' 
if ($Pscmdlet.ShouldProcess($destination, "Creating Agent JobStep on $destination")
    { 
        $null = $jobStep.Create()
    } 
    $job.ApplyToTargetServer($destination)
    $job.StartStepID = $jobStartStepid 
    $job.Alter()

 

The database is dropped

We try 3 different methods to drop the database

$server.KillDatabase($dbname)
$server.databases[$dbname].Drop()
$null = $server.ConnectionContext.ExecuteNonQuery("DROP DATABASE ")

The Agent Job restores the database

To run the Agent Job I call the start method of the Job SMO Object
    $job = $destserver.JobServer.Jobs[$jobname]
    $job.Start()
    $status = $job.CurrentRunStatus
    while ($status -ne 'Idle') {
        Write-Output " Restore Job for $dbname on $destination is $status"
        $job.Refresh()
        $status = $job.CurrentRunStatus
        Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
    }
Then we drop the database for the final time with the confidence that we have a safe backup and an easy one click method to restore it from that backup (as long as the backup is in the same location)
There are further details on the functions page on dbatools
Some videos of it in action are on YouTube http://dbatools.io/video
You can take a look at the code on GitHub here

You can install it with

Install-Module dbatools
You can provide feedback via the Trello Board or discuss it in the #dbatools channel in the Sqlserver Community Slack
You too can also become a contributor https://dbatools.io/join-us/ Come and write a command to make it easy for DBAs to (this bit is up to your imagination).

Using the new SQLServer Powershell module to get SQL Agent Job Information

Posted on by

So with the July Release of SSMS everything changed for using PowerShell with SQL. You can read the details here As I mentioned in my previous post the name of the module has changed to sqlserver

This means that if you have a PowerShell script doing Import-Module SQLPS, it will need to be changed to be Import-Module SqlServer in order to take advantage of the new provider functionality and new CMDLETs. The new module will be installed to “%Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\SqlServer” and hence no update to $env:PSModulePath is required.

You can download the latest SSMS release here Once you have installed and rebooted you can start to look at the new Powershell CMDlets

Import-module sqlserver

Take a look at cmdlets

  Get-command -module sqlserver

Today I want to look at agent jobs

  Get-command *sqlagent*

getcomand sqlagent

So I decided to see how to gather the information I gather for the DBADatabase as described here

This is the query I use to insert the data for the server level agent job information.

  $Query = @"
INSERT INTO [Info].[AgentJobServer]
 ([Date]
 ,[InstanceID]
 ,[NumberOfJobs]
 ,[SuccessfulJobs]
 ,[FailedJobs]
 ,[DisabledJobs]
 ,[UnknownJobs])
 VALUES
 (GetDate()
 ,(SELECT [InstanceID]
FROM [DBADatabase].[dbo].[InstanceList]
WHERE [ServerName] = '$ServerName'
AND [InstanceName] = '$InstanceName'
AND [Port] = '$Port')
 ,'$JobCount'
 ,'$successCount'
 ,'$failedCount'
 ,'$JobsDisabled'
 ,'$UnknownCount')
"@

So Get-SQLAgentJob looks like the one I need. Lets take a look at the help. This should be the starting point whenever you use a new cmdlet

  Get-Help Get-SqlAgentJob -Full

Which states

Returns a SQL Agent Job object for each job that is present in the target instance of SQL Agent.

That sounds like it will meet my needs. Lets take a look

 Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection|ft -AutoSize

sqlinstances

I can get the information I require like this

 $JobCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).Count
$successCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Succeeded'}.Count
$failedCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Failed'}.Count
$JobsDisabled = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.IsEnabled -eq $false}.Count
$UnknownCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Unknown'}.Count

NOTE – That code is for PowerShell V4 and V5, if you are using earlier versions of PowerShell you would need to use

 $JobCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).Count
$successCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection|Where-Object {$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Succeeded'}).Count
$failedCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection |Where-Object {$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Failed'}).Count
$JobsDisabled = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection |Where-Object{$_.IsEnabled -eq $false}).Count
$UnknownCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection |Where-Object{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Unknown'}).Count

But to make the code more performant it is better to do this

  [pscustomobject]$Jobs= @{}
$Jobs.JobCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).Count
$Jobs.successCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Succeeded'}.Count
$Jobs.failedCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Failed'}.Count
$Jobs.JobsDisabled = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.IsEnabled -eq $false}.Count
$Jobs.UnknownCount = (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Unknown'}.Count
$Jobs

jobs

Using Measure-Command showed that this completed in
TotalSeconds : 0.9889336
Rather than
TotalSeconds : 2.9045701

Note that

  (Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection ).where{$_.Enabled -eq $false}.Count

Does not work. I had to check the properties using

  Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection |Get-Member -Type Properties

Which showed me

IsEnabled Property bool IsEnabled {get;set;}

So I tested this against the various SQL versions I had in my lab using this code

 $Table = $null
$Table = New-Object System.Data.DataTable "Jobs"
$Col1 = New-Object System.Data.DataColumn ServerName,([string])
$Col2 = New-Object System.Data.DataColumn JobCount,([int])
$Col3 = New-Object System.Data.DataColumn SuccessCount,([int])
$Col4 = New-Object System.Data.DataColumn FailedCount,([int])
$Col5 = New-Object System.Data.DataColumn DisabledCount,([int])
$Col6 = New-Object System.Data.DataColumn UnknownCount,([int])

$Table.Columns.Add($Col1)
$Table.Columns.Add($Col2)
$Table.Columns.Add($Col3)
$Table.Columns.Add($Col4)
$Table.Columns.Add($Col5)
$Table.Columns.Add($Col6)
foreach ($ServerName in $DemoServers)
{
## $ServerName
$InstanceName =  $ServerName|Select-Object InstanceName -ExpandProperty InstanceName
$Port = $ServerName| Select-Object Port -ExpandProperty Port
$ServerName = $ServerName|Select-Object ServerName -ExpandProperty ServerName
$Connection = $ServerName + '\' + $InstanceName + ',' + $Port
try
{
$srv = New-Object ('Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server') $Connection
}
catch
{
"Failed to connect to $Connection"
}
if (!( $srv.version)){
"Failed to Connect to $Connection"
continue
}
[pscustomobject]$Jobs= @{}
$JobHistory = Get-SqlAgentJob -ServerInstance $Connection
$Row = $Table.NewRow()
$Row.ServerName = $ServerName
$Row.JobCount = $JobHistory.Count
$Row.SuccessCount = $JobHistory.where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Succeeded'}.Count
$Row.FailedCount = $JobHistory.where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Failed'}.Count
$Row.DisabledCount = $JobHistory.where{$_.IsEnabled -eq $false}.Count
$Row.UnknownCount = $JobHistory.where{$_.LastRunOutcome -eq 'Unknown'}.Count
$Table.Rows.Add($row)
}
$Table|ft
Here are the results
job data table

I also had a look at Get-SQLAgentJobHistory Lets take a look at the help

 Get-help get-SQLAgentJobHistory -showwindow

DESCRIPTION

Returns the JobHistory present in the target instance of SQL Agent.

This cmdlet supports the following modes of operation to return the JobHistory:

  1. By specifying the Path of the SQL Agent instance.
  2. By passing the instance of the SQL Agent in the input.
  3. By invoking the cmdlet in a valid context.

So I ran

 Get-SqlAgentJobHistory -ServerInstance sql2014ser12r2

And got back a whole load of information. Every job history available on the server. Too much to look it immediately to work out what to do

So I looked at just one job

 Get-SqlAgentJobHistory -ServerInstance SQL2014Ser12R2 -JobName 'DatabaseBackup - SYSTEM_DATABASES - FULL - Local G Drive'

And got back the last months worth of history for that one job as that is the schedule used to purge the job history for this server So then I added -Since Yesterday to only get the last 24 hours history

 Get-SqlAgentJobHistory -ServerInstance SQL2014Ser12R2 -JobName 'DatabaseBackup - SYSTEM_DATABASES - FULL - Local G Drive' -Since Yesterday

agentjobdetail

The Since Parameter is described as

-Since <SinceType>

A convenient abbreviation to avoid using the -StartRunDate parameter.
It can be specified with the -EndRunDate parameter.

Do not specify a -StartRunDate parameter, if you want to use it.

Accepted values are:
– Midnight (gets all the job history information generated after midnight)
– Yesterday (gets all the job history information generated in the last 24 hours)
– LastWeek (gets all the job history information generated in the last week)
– LastMonth (gets all the job history information generated in the last month)

When I run

 Get-SqlAgentJobHistory -ServerInstance SQL2014Ser12R2 -JobName 'DatabaseBackup - SYSTEM_DATABASES - FULL - Local G Drive' -Since Yesterday |Measure-Object

I get

Count : 3

And if I run

 Get-SqlAgentJobHistory -ServerInstance SQL2014Ser12R2 -JobName 'DatabaseBackup - SYSTEM_DATABASES - FULL - Local G Drive' -Since Yesterday |select RunDate,StepID,Server,JobName,StepName,Message|Out-GridView

I get

agent job out gridview

Which matches the view I see in SSMS Agent Job History

jobhistory

So Get-SqlAgentJobHistory will enable you to use PowerShell to gather information about the Job history for each step of the Agent Jobs and also the message which I can see being very useful.

Come and join us in the SQL Community Slack to discuss these CMDLets and all things SQL Community https://sqlps.io/slack

CALL TO ACTION

Microsoft are engaging with the community to improve the tools we all use in our day to day work. There is are two Trello boards set up for YOU to use to contribute

https://sqlps.io/vote for SQLPS sqlserver PowerShell module

https://sqlps.io/ssms for SSMS

Go and join them and upvote YOUR preferred choice of the next lot of CMDlets

trellocount

We have also set up a SQL Community Slack for anyone in the community to discuss all things related to SQL including the Trello board items and already it seems a good place for people to get help with 150+ members in a few days. You can get an invite here https://sqlps.io/slack

Come and join us

PowerShell CMDLets added for SQL2016 Always Encrypted

Posted on by

The post on the SQLServer blog at TechNet by the SQL Server Tools Team today made me jump out of my seat.

The July update for SSMS includes the first substantial improvement in SQL PowerShell in many years. We owe a lot of thanks for this effort to the great collaboration with our community. We have several new CMDLETs to share with you

In one release there are twenty-five new CMDLets for the new sqlserver module

This means that if you have a PowerShell script doing Import-Module SQLPS, it will need to be changed to be Import-Module SqlServer in order to take advantage of the new provider functionality and new CMDLETs. The new module will be installed to “%Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\SqlServer” and hence no update to $env:PSModulePath is required.

So SQLPS will still continue to work but will not be updated and will not contain the new CMDlets or the future new CMDlets.

So what new things do we have?

This month we introduce CMDLETs for the following areas:

  • Always Encrypted
  • SQL Agent
  • SQL Error Logs

Chrissy LeMaire has written about the new SQL Agent cmdlets

Aaron Nelson has written about the new Get-SqlErrorLog cmdlet

Laerte Junior has written about Invoke-SQLCmd

All four of us will be presenting a webinar on the new CMDlets via the PowerShell Virtual Chapter Wed, Jul 06 2016 12:00 Eastern Daylight Time If you cant make it a recording will be made available on YouTube on the VC Channel https://sqlps.io/video

Always Encrypted CMDlets

That leaves the Always Encrypted CMDLets and there are 17 of those!

Add-SqlColumnEncryptionKeyValue Adds a new encrypted value for an existing column encryption key object in the database.
Complete-SqlColumnMasterKeyRotation Completes the rotation of a column master key.
Get-SqlColumnEncryptionKey Returns all column encryption key objects defined in the database, or returns one column encryption key object with the specified name.
Get-SqlColumnMasterKey Returns the column master key objects defined in the database, or returns one column master key object with the specified name.
Invoke-SqlColumnMasterKeyRotation Initiates the rotation of a column master key.
New-SqlAzureKeyVaultColumnMasterKeySettings Creates a SqlColumnMasterKeySettings object describing an asymmetric key stored in Azure Key Vault.
New-SqlCngColumnMasterKeySettings Creates a SqlColumnMasterKeySettings object describing an asymmetric key stored in a key store supporting the Cryptography Next Generation (CNG) API.
New-SqlColumnEncryptionKey Crates a new column encryption key object in the database.
New-SqlColumnEncryptionKeyEncryptedValue Produces an encrypted value of a column encryption key.
New-SqlColumnEncryptionSettings Creates a new SqlColumnEncryptionSettings object that encapsulates information about a single column’s encryption, including CEK and encryption type.
New-SqlColumnMasterKey Creates a new column master key object in the database.
New-SqlCspColumnMasterKeySettings Creates a SqlColumnMasterKeySettings object describing an asymmetric key stored in a key store with a Cryptography Service Provider (CSP) supporting Cryptography API (CAPI).
Remove-SqlColumnEncryptionKey Removes the column encryption key object from the database.
Remove-SqlColumnEncryptionKeyValue Removes an encrypted value from an existing column encryption key object in the database.
Remove-SqlColumnMasterKey Removes the column master key object from the database.
Set-SqlColumnEncryption Encrypts, decrypts or re-encrypts specified columns in the database.
 

 

That seems to cover setting up Always Encrypted with Powershell , removing it and getting information about it. When the new SSMS update is dropped you will be able to start using all of this new functionality.

Just remember Import-Module sqlserver

CALL TO ACTION

Microsoft are engaging with the community to improve the tools we all use in our day to day work. There is are two Trello boards set up for YOU to use to contribute

https://sqlps.io/vote  for SQLPS  sqlserver PowerShell module

https://sqlps.io/ssms for SSMS

Go and join them and upvote YOUR preferred choice of the next lot of CMDlets

trellocount

 

We have also set up a SQL Community Slack for anyone in the community to discuss all things related to SQL including the Trello board items and already it seems a good place for people to get help with 150+ members in a few days. You can get an invite here https://sqlps.io/slack

Come and join us

PowerShelling SQL Saturday Sessions to the Guidebook app

Posted on by

Following on from my previous post about parsing XML where I used the information from Steve Jones blog post to get information from the SQL Saturday web site I thought that this information and script may be useful for others performing the same task.

  1. Edit – This post was written prior to the updates to the SQL Saturday website over the weekend. When it can back up the script worked perfectly but the website is unavailable at the moment again so I will check and update as needed once it is back.

    We are looking at using the Guidebook app to provide an app for our attendees with all the session details for SQL Saturday Exeter

    The Guidebook admin website requires the data for the sessions in a certain format. You can choose CSV or XLS.

    In the admin portal you can download the template

    down

    which gives an Excel file like this

-excel

 

So now all we need to do is to fill it with data.

I have an Excel Object Snippet which I use to create new Excel Objects when using Powershell to manipulate Excel. Here it is for you. Once you have run the code you will be able to press CTRL + J and be able to choose the New Excel Object Snippet any time.


$snippet = @{
Title = "New Excel Object";
Description = "Creates a New Excel Object";
Text = @"
# Create a .com object for Excel
`$xl = new-object -comobject excel.application
`$xl.Visible = `$true # Set this to False when you run in production
`$wb = `$xl.Workbooks.Add() # Add a workbook

`$ws = `$wb.Worksheets.Item(1) # Add a worksheet

`$cells=`$ws.Cells
&lt;#
Do Some Stuff

perhaps

`$cells.item(`$row,`$col)="Server"
`$cells.item(`$row,`$col).font.size=16
`$Cells.item(`$row,`$col).Columnwidth = 10
`$col++
#&gt;

`$wb.Saveas("C:\temp\Test`$filename.xlsx")
`$xl.quit()
"@
}
New-IseSnippet @snippet

I needed to change this to open the existing file by using

$wb = $xl.Workbooks.Open($GuideBookPath)

In the more help tab of the Excel workbook it says

2.     Make sure that your dates are in the following format: MM/DD/YYYY (i.e. 4/21/2011).  If the dates are in any other format, such
as “April 21, 2011” or “3-Mar-2012”, Gears will not be able to import the data and you will receive an error message.
3.     Make sure that your times are in the following format: HH:MM AM/PM (i.e. 2:30 PM, or 11:15 AM). If the times are in any other
format, such as “3:00 p.m.” or “3:00:00 PM”, Gears will not be able to import the data and you will receive an error message.

So we need to do some manipulation of the data we gather. As before I selected the information from the XML as follows

$Speaker = @{Name="Speaker"; Expression = {$_.speakers.speaker.name}}
$Room = @{Name="Room"; Expression = {$_.location.name}}
$startTime = @{Name="StartTime"; Expression = {[datetime]($_.StartTime)}}
$Endtime = @{Name ="EndTime"; Expression = {[datetime]($_.EndTime)}}
$Talks = $Sessions.event|Where-Object {$_.title -ne 'Coffee Break' -and $_.title -ne 'Room Change' -and $_.title -ne 'Lunch Break' -and $_.title -ne 'Raffle and Cream Tea'}| select $Speaker,$Room,$Starttime,$Endtime,Title,Description |Sort-Object StartTime

I then looped through the $Talks array and wrote each line to Excel like this


foreach ($Talk in $Talks)
{
$Date = $Talk.StartTime.ToString('MM/dd/yyyy') ## to put the info in the right format
$Start = $talk.StartTime.ToString('hh:mm tt') ## to put the info in the right format
$End = $Talk.Endtime.ToString('hh:mm tt') ## to put the info in the right format
$Title = $Talk.Title
$Description = $Talk.Description
$Room = $Talk.Room
$col = 2
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Title
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Date
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Start
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $End
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Room
$col ++
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Description
$row++
}

I know that I converted the String to DateTime and then back to a String again but that was the easiest (quickest) way to obtain the correct format for the Excel file

Then to finish save the file and quit Excel

$wb.Save()
$xl.quit()

Then you upload the file in the Guidebook admin area
import

wait for the email confirmation and all your sessions are available in the guidebook

sched

I hope that is useful to others. The full script is below

## From http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/steve_jones/2015/01/26/downloading-sql-saturday-data/

$i = 372
$baseURL = “http://www.sqlsaturday.com/eventxml.aspx?sat=”
$DestinationFile = “E:\SQLSatData\SQLSat” + $i + “.xml”
$GuideBookPath = 'C:\temp\Guidebook_Schedule_Template.xls'
$sourceURL = $baseURL + $i

$doc = New-Object System.Xml.XmlDocument
$doc.Load($sourceURL)
$doc.Save($DestinationFile)

$Sessions = $doc.GuidebookXML.events
$Speaker = @{Name="Speaker"; Expression = {$_.speakers.speaker.name}}
$Room = @{Name="Room"; Expression = {$_.location.name}}
$startTime = @{Name="StartTime"; Expression = {[datetime]($_.StartTime)}}
$Endtime = @{Name ="EndTime"; Expression = {[datetime]($_.EndTime)}}

$Talks = $Sessions.event|Where-Object {$_.title -ne 'Coffee Break' -and $_.title -ne 'Room Change' -and $_.title -ne 'Lunch Break' -and $_.title -ne 'Raffle and Cream Tea'}| select $Speaker,$Room,$Starttime,$Endtime,Title,Description |Sort-Object StartTime

# Create a .com object for Excel
$xl = new-object -comobject excel.application
$xl.Visible = $true # Set this to False when you run in production
$wb = $xl.Workbooks.Open($GuideBookPath)
$ws = $wb.Worksheets.item(1)

$cells=$ws.Cells

$cells.item(2,1) = '' # To clear that entry
$cells.item(3,1) = '' # To clear that entry

$col = 2
$row = 2

foreach ($Talk in $Talks)
{
$Date = $Talk.StartTime.ToString('MM/dd/yyyy') ## to put the info in the right format
$Start = $talk.StartTime.ToString('hh:mm tt') ## to put the info in the right format
$End = $Talk.Endtime.ToString('hh:mm tt') ## to put the info in the right format
$Title = $Talk.Title
$Description = $Talk.Description
$Room = $Talk.Room
$col = 2
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Title
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Date
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Start
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $End
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Room
$col ++
$col ++
$cells.item($row,$col) = $Description
$row++
}

$wb.Save()
$xl.quit()

Twas 2 Days Before Xmas or Thank you SQLFamily

Posted on by

Twas 2 days before Xmas & all through the office,
not a creature was stirring not even old Maurice.
With merriment going on outside of his window
There sat a bearded DBA without much to do

No changes can be made through the holiday season
We’re on skeleton support, which is a good reason
Ensure you are making the most of your time
You mustn’t be wasting the company dime

The backups are checked, there isn’t an issue
So documentation writing should ensue
Instead he decided to procrastinate
And so, this little ditty he proceeded to create

Looking back over last year he did ruminate
About all the progress he had made, it was great
So much had been learned, so many improvements
Derived using content from fine ladies and gents

Impossible to estimate how much it would cost
Or calculate the amount of revenue lost
For all that he would have been unable to do
Or the times that he knew how to get out of a stew

But also the friends old, new and the rest
The talking and dining and drinking and jest
I am lucky to be a part of the SQL Family
So thank you one and all, with love from me

beard

Giving Back – #TSQL2sday

Posted on by

T-SQL Tuesday, which was started by Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) and is now starting its 6th year, is hosted by a different person each month. The host selects the theme, and then the blogging begins. Worldwide, on the second Tuesday of the month (all day, based on GMT time), bloggers attend this party by blogging about the theme. This month it is hosted by Wayne Sheffield blog|twitter and in the spirit of the holiday season it is about giving. This is my post on giving back, in the little ways as well as the bigger ones, how you can give back and why it not only benefits others but also yourself

What’s the SQL Family?

The SQL Family (or SQL community call it what you will) is a fabulous place to be. Full of many wonderful, talented, passionate and generous people. Every method of interaction that you wish for can be found if you look. Ever wanted to know how others do it? or Does this happen in other shops? or I wish I had access to someone who knows about ‘insert new shiny thing here’?

I guess that that is how I joined. I had no peers in my shop. I had no one to turn to to ask questions or get advice. I had no support and I turned to the internet. Now we all know that the internet lies. It is full of accidental and deliberate mistruths, of part information and downright bad advice. You have to be careful where you go and who you trust. I gradually found myself going back to the same resources and from those I found out about PASS and user groups

I am in the UK. I found the list of UK SQL User Groups

You can find more here both local and virtual

User Groups

I found a user group near me and went along to a meeting not knowing what to expect. I found a group of people like me willing to give up their time to learn and share knowledge. A wide range of people from DBAs, Developers, BI Professionals and SysAdmins. Working for International multi regional companies looking after many hundreds of SQL Servers to single sysadmins looking after the whole kit and caboodle and everything in between. A wealth and breadth of knowledge to tap into. You will learn so much not only from the sessions but also the conversation with all these other talented people

Come along.

Simply coming along will bring benefit. Other people will be interested in what you have to say even if you are in week 0 of your first ever job. Your view will still be valued. Everyone can learn from everybody and NO-ONE knows it all.

There will come a point where you will pass on a piece of knowledge or an idea or a way of working and someone will say thank you I didn’t know that. You just gave back. It may even be someone you look up to, someone whose knowledge and experience far outweighs yours whose word you hang on to. That feels good.

You may ask the questions that others thought but didnt ask and boy are they glad you asked the question. You just gave back. It’s something I do often. I ask questions and sometimes I ask questions I know the answer to so that they will be of benefit to the group.

What will you get? More than you can ever put in. Free training, often free pizza, knowledge, advice,guidance, contacts, support, a network of people in your field, notice of job openings, swag, fun, friends, more social events and more and more

The user groups are run by volunteers in their own time out of the goodness of their hearts. They will always need your help. Turn up 5 minutes earlier and help set out the chairs or put out the handouts or assist with the tech. You just gave back. Afterwards before going to the pub clear the tables, help carry the boxes, put the pizza evidence in the bin. You just gave back

SQL Saturdays and other community events

SQL Saturdays are held all over the world most every Saturday You can find more about them here https://www.sqlsaturday.com/ There are also other larger events such as SQL Bits and SQL Relay here in the UK. Everything I wrote about User groups counts here just in a slightly larger scale. You will be able to attend several sessions across many different areas for free on a Saturday

These events are also run by volunteers and they will also need your help. If you can spare some time to help on a registration desk you just gave back. A room monitor to ensure the speaker and delegates have everything they need, the room is tidy and the session runs to time. You just gave back. Putting things out and tidying them away again. You just gave back.

You can become a volunteer by asking the people organising the events if they would like your help. These events will all have twitter feeds and emails and facebook pages and many methods of getting in touch. Contact them and offer your help if you can. You just gave back.

If you fancy taking the next step then you can get involved in organising the events. This is hard work, great fun, a good thing to add to your CV and you just gave back. There are so many areas to get involved organising an event. Premises and technology, speakers and printers, volunteers and sponsors all need co-ordination. Websites,twitter feeds, feedback forms, posters, marketing materials all need designing and producing. There are so many ways in which you will be able to provide value to the event and you just gave back

Oh and whilst I am at it, when you attend an event

Say Thank You to the volunteers. You just gave back.

 Speaking and Blogging

All the events named above need speakers. The bigger events like the SQL Saturdays and the large events like SQL Bits will generally have more established speakers but every user group will need speakers and they will be more likely to accept new speakers and will be very supportive if you say that you are a new speaker. Every speaker had to make their first presentation at some point and they all know how it feels and can provide guidance and advice. You will feel that you don’t have anything to speak about that others will want to hear about. You do. Your experience and your knowledge or how you solved something or created something will be of interest to people. Of course, you need to check with the user group leaders and members if your idea for a presentation is suitable. Like anything you do that is new, researching it and taking advice from people with more experience is always useful. Maybe you can start with a lightning talk. Give it a go. You just gave back.

What do you get back from Speaking and Blogging?

I’ll tell you a secret. The vast majority of my posts ( This is an exception) are written for the benefit of one person. Me.

I write posts to record my learning for myself. To document my knowledge. I use my posts to help me to do my job. I know that I wrote the method of doing something somewhere and this is part of my store of knowledge. I write posts to answer peoples questions so that I have a place to point them to. Occasionally people will email me asking a question and if it requires a detailed response I will write a post and email them to tell them that this is the answer. I often point my work colleagues at my blog when they ask me questions about Azure or Powershell. You could also see your blog as an extension of your CV and use it when job hunting and develop it in that way

I also write posts to expand my knowledge and this is the same for speaking. When I am writing a blog post or a presentation I will read and watch videos and ensure I know more about it. The process of creating that content will improve my own knowledge and work practices and you will find that, as you write your blog posts you will have a deeper knowledge also. When you give your presentations you will learn as you answer questions or find the answer to the question afterwards (It’s ok to do that) that you are improving yourself and your knowledge.You will also be giving back.

Putting your information online will enable people to find it. Sure you can worry about SEO and getting to the top of search pages but you know that sometimes the answer is on the ninth page. What you write will be of benefit to others and by taking the time to post you will be giving back to the community

You can do one, many or all of those and you will be giving back. I hope you do

I will be giving back. You will find me at SQL Bits where I shall be room monitoring and volunteering.

You will find me at SQL Saturday Exeter. I am again one of the fabulous SQL South West team

who are again organising a SQL Saturday in Exeter in the UK on April 24th/25th 2015 You can find out more here http://sqlsouthwest.co.uk/sql-saturday-372/ 

You still have time, if you are quick, to submit a session to speak or present a pre-con at Exeter. Submissions close on 15th December and we would love to have yours

I shall carry on blogging and hopefully present at some user groups again this year. If you see me any where, come up and say hi to me. You just gave back