Prashanth Jayaram

Prashanth Jayaram
Latest posts by Prashanth Jayaram (see all)

6 methods to write PowerShell output to a SQL Server table

December 25, 2017 by

PowerShell has become the ultimate choice for many database administrators because of its efficient way of handling and managing automation in a simple, quick way. It’s built on .NET Framework and uses Object Models such as COM, ADSI, ADO, and WMI. PowerShell has replaced the traditional way of scripting that used many legacy scripting practices to monitor SQL instances.

I’ve been asked on several occasions about how to store the output of PowerShell WMI data into the SQL table. The question comes up so frequently that I decided to write this article.

When sending data within a system (such as a PowerShell object to a cmdlet), the process is straightforward. However, with non-native data interchange (for instance, WMI to SQL), the process can potentially get complicated. Due to this, many purists suggest sticking to simple interchange formats, such as CSV, JSON or in some cases, XML.

Read more »

How to configure SQL Server 2017 on Linux with mssql-conf and other available tools

December 13, 2017 by

Configuration of any system plays a vital role in its working efficiently. However, configuring a system needs not necessarily be a daunting task. There are several tools that help with the process.

SQL Server on Linux provides a wide range of options for configuration, management and administration.

  1. mssql-conf
  2. Transact-SQL
  3. SQL Server Management Studio
  4. PowerShell
Read more »

An introduction to a SQL Server 2017 graph database

December 4, 2017 by

The graph database is a critically important new technology for data professionals. As a database technologist always keen to know and understand the latest innovations happening around the cutting edge or next-generation technologies, and after working with traditional relational database systems and NoSQL databases, I feel that the graph database has a significant role to play in the growth of an organization. Not only are traditional database systems generally inefficient in displaying complex hierarchical data, but even NoSQL lags a little. We usually see a degradation in performance with the number of levels of relationship and database size. Also, depending on the relationship, the number of joins may increase as well.

Read more »

Data Interpolation and Transformation using Python in SQL Server 2017

November 21, 2017 by

As a continuation to my previous article, How to use Python in SQL Server 2017 to obtain advanced data analytics, a little bit of curiosity about Deep Learning with Python integration in SQL Server led me to write this latest article.

With Python running within SQL Server, you can bring the existing data and the code together. Data is accessible directly, so there’s no need to extract query data sets, moving data from storage to the application. It’s a useful approach, especially considering issues of data sovereignty and compliance, since the code runs within the SQL Server security boundaries, triggered by a single call from T-SQL stored procedures.

Read more »

How to set up SQL Server Log Shipping on Linux

November 13, 2017 by

Log shipping is a high-availability configuration that perhaps most of us are familiar with. It’s one of the oldest techniques wherein we ship transaction logs from a Primary database to a Secondary database. Log Shipping is still a vital feature used in case of applications that use warm standby for Disaster Recovery. We can see many articles which discuss the process of configuring Log shipping using T-SQL or SSMS.

Read more »

An overview of Python vs PowerShell for SQL Server Database Administration

November 2, 2017 by

Today, Microsoft claims that Linux runs like a First-Class citizen on Azure, .NET Core has been open-sourced, and has been ported over to Linux, taking PowerShell along. PowerShell runs really well on Ubuntu, CentOS, RedHat Linux, and even Mac OS X. There are Alpha builds available for a few other platforms as well, all available for exploitation under the MIT License on GitHub. “Manage anything, anywhere” is what Microsoft is offering to its customers. Keeping with that, we now have:

Read more »

Why would a SQL Server DBA be interested in Python?

October 23, 2017 by

If we follow blogs and publications on the technological advancement with respect to SQL, we notice the increase in the number of references to Python, of late. Often, that makes us think:

  • Why so much emphasis on Python these days?
  • Isn’t knowing PowerShell scripting sufficient for the automation requirements of today?
  • Is it the time DBAs started learning a programming language such as Python in order to handle their day-to-day tasks more efficiently?
  • Why do so many job postings these days include “knowledge of scripting” as a requirement?
  • Is all of this happening because the paradigm is shifting? Can’t the current Microsoft-specific languages such as PowerShell handle the shift?
Read more »

Monitoring SQL Server database status changes using T-SQL and PowerShell scripts

October 17, 2017 by

Monitoring a SQL Server database is a critical component of database administration. Ninety percent of the organizations expect the number of databases to increase over the next twelve months. An increase in data volumes can have negative effects on the availability of databases. Hence, SQL Server database monitoring is considered a critical responsibility of a database administrator. Organizations tend to spend a lot of their funds towards enterprise solutions. And due to the sensitive and growing nature of business and user needs, application availability is very important nowadays.

Read more »

The evolution of SQL Server towards Digital Transformation challenges

October 9, 2017 by

In a data-driven world, where every second see a transfer of billions of pieces of data, enterprises are focused on making the access to data fluid and capable of being accessed on demand on a myriad of devices. Leveraging these capabilities to deliver better business results is now the prime focus. Information Technology is no more what it has been. What the web saw during the dot-com boom is what enterprise data is seeing now. Social, mobile, analytics, cloud, Big Data, Internet of Things… They’ve been enabling organizations to scale.

Read more »

How to configure Always Encrypted in SQL Server 2016 using SSMS, PowerShell and T-SQL

October 2, 2017 by

In an era of remote storage and retrieval of data, including the cloud, data security plays a vital role, especially since it’s vulnerable during the transit. Situations like database backup or copy from or to the cloud, there is always a risk of data exposure to outside world lurking around one corner or the other. We have seen a noticeable surge in the technologies around protection and security of data from the world full of unsafe hands. Efforts are being made to protect data at a very granular level of the encryption hierarchy. Protection of business data cannot be stressed upon more.

Read more »

SQL Server DB Migration – Cloning a database to another collation

September 19, 2017 by

Database migration is a vital task in any environment, complex or otherwise. Seamless migrations are the goal but the efforts required to ensure it are tremendous.

Backing up and restoring the database is surely a preferred and a robust approach, but does it work well in all situations? How do we plan this when the source and the destination databases need different configurations? How do we make such a migration seamless?

Read more »

How to Capture Database(s) usage stats using sp_spaceused and PowerShell

September 11, 2017 by

Today’s businesses work with huge volumes of data. Sometimes, understanding the granularity of the data is helpful in data administration. Understanding the granularity poses unique challenges though and the database administrator needs to balance the key business and technical metrics of the environment. One of the key technical metrics is disk space estimation, which is vital to capacity planning and forecasting. The simplest way to get this information is by using the system stored procedure, called, sp_spaceused. The growth metrics can be captured periodically and stored in a central repository, a repository dedicated to helping with capacity planning and forecasting the disk requirements. This is a critical part of the day-to-day activities of a database administrator.

Read more »

Multi-server Script to Find Orphaned Data Files using PowerShell

August 23, 2017 by

Having worked in busy dev-test environments, it isn’t uncommon to come across situations where someone detached a database from an SQL server, but forgot to reattach it, or drop it from the server. The next task we are then required to undertake, upon coming across such a situation, is to clean up the traces. This task can be complicated if the detached databases get deregistered from the SQL Server metadata catalog.

Read more »

Planning a SQL Server Backup and Restore strategy in a multi-server environment using PowerShell and T-SQL

August 15, 2017 by

Introduction

Database availability is critical to every enterprise and conversely, unavailability directly can create a severe negative impact to the business in today’s world. As database administrators, it is important that we ensure we take all possible steps to minimize data loss. While it is naïve to think that our databases are invincible because of all such precautions, we can always aim to bring the databases back into operation as quickly as possible by meeting the RPO and RTO. This way, the business is unaffected, and we also meet our SLAs.

Read more »

A Quick start Guide to Managing SQL Server 2017 on CentOS/RHEL Using the SSH Protocol

August 8, 2017 by

In one of my previous articles Installation of SQL Server vNext CTP on Linux Distribution CentOS 7, I spoke about the installation of SQL Server 2017 on a Linux computer. Let us now look at another way to showcase that a SQL Server installation and configuration can also be managed using the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol using PuTTY. We shall look at the important details, such as, how to get PuTTY, SQL Server, how to install/uninstall SQL 2017 CTP2.1, Upgrade to SQL 2017 RC1, and install/remove SQL Tools.

Read more »

How to Configure TDE database with AlwaysOn using the Azure Key Vault in SQL 2016

July 28, 2017 by

One of the recent tasks I undertook on configuring Transparent Data encryption (TDE) using asymmetric key protection with Azure Key Vault with Always On opened a different dimension on securing data for me. Even though it seems slightly complex, if you have the key details, the steps are in fact, really straight forward.

Read more »

How to use Python in SQL Server 2017 to obtain advanced data analytics

June 20, 2017 by

On the 19th of April 2017, Microsoft held an online conference called Microsoft Data Amp to showcase how Microsoft’s latest innovations put data, analytics and artificial intelligence at the heart of business transformation. Microsoft has, over the last few years, made great strides in accelerating the pace of innovation to enable businesses to meet the demands of a dynamic marketplace and harness the incredible power of data—more securely and faster than ever before.

Read more »

Top SQL string functions in SQL Server 2017

June 8, 2017 by

SQL Server 2017 has been in the talk for its many features that simplify a developer’s life. With the previous versions, developers had to write T-SQL, or user-defined functions using temporary tables, and build complex logic, just for string manipulation. In almost every database I work with, I see many user-defined functions for string manipulation and string aggregation.

Read more »

Installation of SQL Server vNext CTP on Linux Distribution CentOS 7

May 10, 2017 by

It was a paradigm shift in December 2016, when Microsoft made their SQL Server database available for Linux; it was the first time in history that Microsoft ever designed SQL Server to run on a non-Windows operating system. SQL Server vNext was released for public preview so the user community could test and deploy SQL Server on a Linux operating system. Microsoft took a major step in diversifying the database technology into the non-windows platform for the first time.

Read more »

SQL Server 2016 enhancements – SQL Truncate Table and Table Partitioning

April 18, 2017 by

The idea behind this article is to discuss the importance and the implication of SQL Partition and understand the SQL truncate command partitioning enhancements in SQL 2016

One of the biggest challenges for a DBA is to identify the right candidate for table partitioning, as it requires expertise in design and implementation.

Read more »

Custom keyboard shortcuts in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

March 27, 2017 by

People love taking shortcuts because it’s the easiest way to do things faster; computers are no exception. Shortcuts, particularly ones performed by keyboard, can save you hours of time once applied properly. Learning keyboard shortcut saves you a lot of time; you’ll definitely notice a boost the productivity because you’re not unnecessarily reaching for a mouse all the time.

Read more »