Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration with Windows PowerShell (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback]

This book pretty much covers everything I needed. I fully recommend it to anyone needing an update on their SQL Server administration and development skills.
Very useful information about new features in SQL Server 2008 and how to manage it using Windows PowerShell. The chapter on Monitoring SQL Server (Chapter 18) is pure gold and extremely useful. It covers monitoring blockings, deadlocks, and windows event logs which are essential to ensure the stability of SQL Server environment, and they get right to the point. Another beauty is Chapter 14, covers SQL Server standards, development standards, Database Design standards and best practices, Data protection standards, production standards, and Windows PowerShell coding standards, and those are milestones for DBAs.
This is an excellent reference book, and I strongly recommend it.

Powershell is a recent development in the Microsoft operating system world that has great potential for control and automation of many operating system processes. It supersedes the older batch file methods and previous scripting languages. However, it is a notable departure from the previous languages and has a much higher level of complexity. It takes a careful approach to introduce this complex subject successfully and this book falls short in a few ways. Still, I say with a few reservations that this book is a good introduction to the Powershell world and is virtually the only one that deals thoroughly with Powershell management of SQL Server databases. As with many other complex subjects, getting the complete viewpoint from a number of books is much more revealing and productive in mastering the material. I recommend Manning's "Powershell in Action" to complete your training in this material.

The first four chapters of the book are almost a classic introduction to Powershell itself. The scripts are shown in the Powershell window which gives the reader the best understanding of how the overall commands and programs should look. Several other books provide only code fragments and show developments in disconnected text which leaves the reader confused as to how the final program should be formed.

Chapters five through ten introduce Powershell control over the file system, Registry and the operating system WMI reporting on processes and configuration management. Although, this is wonderful support material, it lacks a topside explanation of why and how this control should be used. The author is very competent in his design of these control scripts but he seems too close to the subject and doesn't explain at all how they fit into the overall remote management philosophy of servers and client computer clusters. Since Powershell was developed with this primarily in mind, it is a puzzling aspect of this introduction. However, I did find a supporting culture at Microsoft that didn't know how to teach its philosophy of design and use well that might explain this oversight. In that culture it is simply expected that a final mastery will happen by osmosis and nothing more should be said about that matter. I believe that attitude is incorrect for books that are meant for the general public. Since the book is probably the only source for the reader to achieve competence, it should be required to have the philosophy of this software tool well explained.

Finally, in chapter eleven, the book introduces the two methods that Powershell can use to affect SQL Server databases. By chapter thirteen the real capabilities of Powershell are displayed in the use of SMO. My favorite chapter in this series is chapter sixteen. I expect that many of the readers are interested in Powershell so that they can build installation scripts that automatically create and configure SQL Server databases. A number of well formed complex scripts are introduced here to give the reader some excellent ideas of how to use Powershell to manage the database configuration.

However, and as before, the real value of this is not explained by the author. So I will fill in for him instead. Many highly rated database authors have stated that databases exist for applications and that application control and access to databases is why tools like Powershell exist. I believe that manual administration of databases is a form of primitive technology. If you go to the CodeProject, you will be able to see how a program can provide the external intelligent management that will allow for Powershell automation. Take the Powershell introduction here and build an intelligent program wrapper around it.

The last few chapters of the book discuss SQL Server monitoring and managing system policies. This is an important area for DBAs, but lacks the sexy pote3ntial of the middle chapters. Here the book winds down into mundane matters that IT gurus need in order to complete the administrative knowledge that allows large groups of computers to work together reliably.

I recommend this book because it lays in the bottom layer of instruction needed to master Powershell in the area of databases. The reader will have to supply the imagination to see that this knowledge can be easily extended to design software programs that can provide automation of database installation and management. The 21st century is already here, let's link our minds as well as our computers and provide intelligent results to increase the productivity and reliability of computer systems.

I recommend this book to all database administrators who still have not jumped in and executed their first PowerShell command. I know of several DBAs who for one reason or another, keep postponing their exposure to the next generation command line shell. This volume makes a good first PowerShell book for DBAs. It covers the basics of the language with enough examples to get you going and good coverage of what is possible when combined with MS SQL 2008.

The first ten chapters go over specifics of the language, programming syntax, and how to interact with different areas of the operating system. The following eleven chapters demonstrate with code samples, how integrated are MS SQL 2008 and PowerShell. I have found that many of the examples in this book also apply to MS SQL 2005. My favorite chapter is 15 "Building SQL Server Inventory" because the authors provide a working solution to a common problems DBA have when managing many database servers.

To those DBAs who still have not jumped in, do yourself a favor and read this book.