For the last couple of months, members of the dbatools team have been working on a new PowerShell module called dbachecks. This open source PowerShell module will enable you to validate your SQL Instances. Today it is released for you all to start to use 🙂

dbachecks launch - the blog posts series

Here you can find a list of the blog posts made available today:

• Announcing dbachecks – Configurable PowerShell Validation For Your SQL Instances by Rob Sewell
• introducing dbachecks - a new module from the dbatools team! by Chrissy LeMaire
• install dbachecks by Chrissy LeMaire
• dbachecks commands by Chrissy LeMaire
• dbachecks – Using Power BI dashboards to analyse results by Cláudio Silva
• My wrapper for dbachecks by Tony Wilhelm
• Checking backups with dbachecks by Jess Promfret
• dbachecks please! by Garry Bargsley
• dbachecks – Configuration Deep Dive by Rob Sewell
• Test Log Shipping with dbachecks
• Checking your backup strategy with dbachecks by Joshua Corrick
• Enterprise-level reporting with dbachecks by Jason Squires
• Adding your own checks to dbachecks by Shane O’Neill
• dbachecks - A different approach for an in-progress and incremental validation by Cláudio Silva

Other documentation:

Continue reading

In two weeks from now, on 23rd of February, I will be speaking at SQLBits 2018! It’s my first time on the largest SQL Server conference in Europe for data professionals.

I will deliver a session about SQL Server Reporting Services and PowerShell titled - “Administrating SSRS without boring web based clicks”.

You can check the great content that will be shared on the 4 days: Trainning days: Wednesday and Thursday Regular sessions: Friday and Saturday

Continue reading

One of the main DBA’s duties is to guarantee that SQL Server instances are up-to-date in terms of patches (Service Packs, Cumulative Updates or Security Updates).

Recently, dbatools added a new command that turns this validation a piece of cake. Thanks to Simone Bizzotto (@niphlod) for baking up the command that Shawn Melton (@wsmelton) and I initially requested.

Some dbatools users already expressed their happiness with the command, like Jess Pomfret did here

Continue reading

Last night, I received Adam Machanic’s ( b | t ) newsletter “Announcing sp_whoisactive v11.20: Live Query Plans”.

For those who don’t know about it, sp_WhoIsActive is a stored procedure that provides detailed information about the sessions running on your SQL Server instance. It is a great tool when we need to troubleshoot some problems such as long-running queries or blocking. (just two examples)

This stored procedure works on any version/edition since SQL Server 2005 SP1. Although, you only will be able to see the new feature (live query plans) if you run it on SQL Server 2016 or 2017.

Continue reading

Today I will write just a short blog post to do a quick reminder!

I still hear a lot of people suggesting CTEs because they think it works like a temporary table (you populate the table and then it can be/is reutilized).

It doesn’t!

From de documentation :

Specifies a temporary named result set, known as a common table expression (CTE).

Maybe they are focusing on the “temporary” word.

Continue reading