Desired State Configuration: Resources
Learn more about the building blocks for our #Powershell #DSC configurations.
Desired State Configuration: Local Configuration Manager
Once we have crafted the perfect configuration and shipped it out to our target nodes, it’s time for the magic to happen. The MOF file that we created by executing our configuration is translated and enacted by the Local Configuration Manager (LCM) on each target node. The LCM is the engine of DSC and plays…
Desired State Configuration: MOF Files
In my last Desired State Configuration (DSC) post a couple of weeks ago I covered some of the concepts involved with DSC, and I also have a T-SQL Tuesday post to get you started writing your first configuration. So today we are going to look at the next step in the process: what happens after…
T-SQL Tuesday #112 – Dipping into your Cookie Jar
It’s T-SQL Tuesday time again and our host this week, Shane O’Neill (b|t), has challenged us to a humble brag. This really is a challenge for most of us as we do awesome things quietly, so thanks to Shane for forcing us to share some ‘cookies’. This is also the second time in a couple…
Introduction to Desired State Configuration
I’m currently working on a pretty interesting project to explore using PowerShell’s Desired State Configuration (DSC) to manage SQL Servers. DSC uses declarative language to define the desired state of your infrastructure. Ensuring that the directory C:\Test exists is a simple example. A more complicated example would be the complete configuration of a SQL Server.…
Data Compression Internals
Last year I gave my first user group presentation on data compression and since then I’ve also given this talk at both SQL Saturday Columbus 2018 and SQL Saturday Cleveland 2019. One of my favourite demos from the presentation is taking a look under the covers to see what SQL Server does with compressed data…
T-SQL Tuesday #111 – What is Your “Why”?
It’s T-SQL Tuesday again and thanks goes this week to our host Andy Leonard (b|t). Andy has picked a great topic on why we do the things we do. With our hectic lives it’s good sometimes to sit down and have a think about something like this. I’ve split my ‘what I do’ up into…
dbatools with Bert
This weekend, while I was having a great time at SQL Saturday Cleveland, I ran into my friend Bert (b|t). He had some dbatools questions, which I was happy to help him with. Now that dbatools has over 500 commands, it is both awesome and terrifying. Bert wanted to know how to automate his database…
Data Compression Demos in Containers
One of the things I want to spend more time exploring this year is containers, specifically SQL Server running in containers. While I’ve been preparing to give my data compression talk at SQL Saturday Cleveland, which is only two weeks away, and generally procrastinating from all other responsibilities, I decided I should change my demos…
T-SQL Tuesday #110 – “Automate All the Things”
Automation is something that interests me greatly, and I think if you have read even one of my previous posts you’ll know that my favorite tool for this kind of work is PowerShell. This is the perfect topic to kick off T-SQL Tuesday for 2019 so thanks goes to Garry Bargsley for hosting this month.…