new release - twentyfiveschmeckles

In this release, we gained 4 new contributors to the dbatools master repository for a grand total of of 39! We even added 4 new Major Contributors to the team. Thanks to all who have joined in to make the awesomest toolset for SQL Server DBAs -- we're now offering the community 126 quality commands.

Sorry for the delay, we've been really busy!

Our last release came out around mid-December. Ideally, we aim for releasing more often, but Rob and I were out presenting about dbatools and dbareports at a few conferences and ran out of time. We did merge a mini-release (v0.8.693) to master in early January, though. So that kinda counts ;)

The rest of the team has been super busy, too, as you can see by all of the new commands, enhancements and fixes. Now we've had time to compile the documentation and screenshots, so here is the release in all of its amazing glory.

New Commands

In this release we have 22 new commands, several bugs fixes and a bunch of improvements on the existing commands. There are so many exciting commands in this release, it's hard to even highlight the top 22 best(har har). Tweet us and let us know your favorites! We're really curious.

  • Export-DbaUser Exports SQL Server Database Users creation script with all database permissions (database and object level) to a T-SQL file. This is a function that is not available in SQL Server Management Studio.

  • Find-DbaAgentJob Finds agent job(s) that fit certain search criteria.

  • Find-DbaDatabase Search SQL Server instances for database that have either the same name, owner or service broker guid.

  • Find-DbaStoredProcedure Returns all stored procedures that contain a specific string or regex pattern.

  • Get-DbaAgentAlert Return all SQL Agent alerts on a SQL Server Agent.

  • Get-DbaAgentOperator Returns all SQL Agent operators on a SQL Server Agent.

  • Get-DbaDbState Gets some common “states” on databases like Read-Write (READ_ONLY or READ_WRITE), Status (ONLINE, OFFLINE, EMERGENCY) and Access options (SINGLE_USER, RESTRICTED_USER, MULTI_USER)

  • Get-DbaHelpIndex This function will return detailed information on indexes (and optionally statistics) for all indexes in a database, or a given index should one be passed along.

  • Get-DbaMemoryUsage Get amount of memory in use by all SQL Server components and instances. SSAS and SSIS are included.

  • Get-DbaMsdtc Displays information about the Distributed Transactioon Coordinator (MSDTC) on a server.

  • Get-DbaPageFileSetting Returns detailed information about the Windows page file.

  • Get-DbaTrigger Get all existing triggers at instance and database level.

  • Get-DbaUptime Returns the uptime of the SQL Server instance. If you want you can get the value for the hosting windows server too.

  • Get-DbaXEventsSession Retrieves a list of Extended Events Sessions.

  • Invoke-DbaQuery Invoke-SqlCmd2, a community favorite, has also been added to dbatools! Updates will continue to occur in the Invoke-SqlCmd2 repository and we'll just add the updates with each release

    Invoke-DbaQuery runs a T-SQL script. But only captures the first selected result set, such as the output of PRINT statements when -verbose parameter is specified. A big plus when comparing with native Invoke-Sqlcmd cmdlet is that this one supports parameterized queries.

  • New-DbaDbSnapshot Do you need to create a database snapshot? This command will do it without hassles.

  • ConvertTo-DbaDataTable Will creates a DataTable based on an objects properties. This allows you to easily write to SQL Server tables.

  • Rename-DbaLogin It can be a pain to update all of the mappings for a specific user when you rename a SQL login this does it for you, will rename login and database mapping for a specified login.

  • Restore-DbaFromDatabaseSnapshot Restores the database from the snapshot, discarding every modification made to the database.

  • Set-DbaDbState Want to change a database state? With this command you can chose between ReadOnly, ReadWrite, Online, Offline, Emergency, plus a special “Detached”, SingleUser, RestrictedUser, MultiUser.

  • Test-DbaOptimizeForAdHoc Displays information relating to SQL Server Optimize for AdHoc Workloads setting.

  • Write-DbaDataTable Quickly and efficiently writes data to a SQL Server Table using a .NET DataTable to a SQL Server table using SQL Bulk Copy.

Improvements

  • Test-DbaMigrationConstraint Added support for SQL Server 2016 SP1 outstanding news! Almost all editions support what was, until now, Enterprise-only features. (#512)

  • Get-SqlServerKey Added support for SQL Server 2016 (#610)

  • Copy-DbaLogin If you try to transfer a local account (non-domain) you get a "Skipped", because is a local machine account. (#275)

Notable bug fixes

How's 1.0 coming along?

Very well! We're working through the style guide right now and have been decisive and moving forward quickly. The feature code freeze is still planned for the end of February then we'll begin working on:

  • Bug fixes
  • Standardized documentation
  • Standardized names for parameters, commands, etc
  • Standardized outputs
  • Testing

We plan to resolve all bug issues first and will continue releasing on a regular basis until the style changes are implemented. If you're available to help, we'd love it! Even if you don't know PowerShell, we'll need help updating the website with screenshots and examples with the updated parameters and command names, and other tasks of that nature.

AppVeyor, Pester and Testing

Rob Sewell of dbareports.io fame spent even more time adding Pester testing and enforced testing for each commit using AppVeyor. This helps us release more often and with higher quality.

Want to help create tests? We're in desperate need of testers and Pester fans. Or, if you want to learn Pester, this is a great opportunity. Both dbatools and dbareports are in need. Thanks so much to Iraklis Evangelinos for the tests he contributed in this release.

New to dbatools?

Visit the downloads page for information about how to download and install dbatools (it's 1 command).

Join us!

Some of these commands are in their infancy. Want to help make them better? Come join the coding party! We're all hanging out on the SQL Server Community Slack in the #dbatools channel. There's like 430 of us there now.

Thanks for reading :D - Chrissy