Resources from SQL Saturday #130

I want to thank everyone that attended my PowerShell session at SQL Saturday #130 in Jacksonville. It was a great opportunity to demonstrate some PowerShell fundamentals, and I hope everyone learned something they can use. I really didn’t have much for slides, but a transcript of my session is available, which is a text record of the output and commands I typed during my demo. Remember to use Get-Command to find cmdlets, Get-Help to find out how to use them, and Get-Member to find out what the returned objects can do.

If you liked what you saw and want to learn more, there are many resources available for learning PowerShell. I have a list of free PowerShell eBooks which is a good place to start. I also have a list of paid PowerShell books. For someone completely new to PowerShell or someone that prefers a very structured learning approach, I suggest Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches by Don Jones. Be sure to check out the additional resources at the book’s website, and take advantage of the companion videos Don has made available on YouTube. Someone with a scripting or programming background that’s looking for a solid reference book would do well with Bruce Payette’s book PowerShell in Action. This is a very detailed look at how PowerShell works and why certain decisions were made when designing the language.

Many PowerShell videos are available at Channel 9, including the PowerShell sessions from TechEd events. Don Jones has a four hour sample of a training class uploaded to Youtube, and Jeff Hicks has a series of videos from TrainSignal.

Have a long commute and need something to listen to? Try downloading some podcasts from the PowerScripting Podcast. Last week Michiel Wories, the Principal Architect and Lead Developer of SQL Server, was talking about SQL Server 2012.

Most of these resources focus on PowerShell in general and don’t get specific on SQL Server. For some examples on how PowerShell is used by SQL Server experts, I suggest reading the blogs from Allen White, Aaron Nelson, Chad Miller, and Max Trinidad.

For some more ideas on how PowerShell can be useful for a Database Administrtor, check out the SQL Server PowerShell Extensions. SQLPSX is an open source project for working with ADO.NET, SMO, Agent, RMO, SSIS, SQL script files, PBM, Oracle and MySQL and using Powershell ISE as a SQL and Oracle query tool.

There is a massive amount of information available, but hopefully this is enough to get you started. The PowerShell community is very active and close-knit in the way the SQL community is. Send someone an email, ask a question in a forum, or throw the twitter tag #PowerShell on your tweets, and you’re very likely to get pointed in the right direction.