Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

Moving Tasks with Copy-SqlJob
More dbatools experimentation for me. This is a great set of Powershell cmdlets that solve simple, handy problems. In this post, I want to look at Copy-SqlJob, which will allow me to easily move jobs from one instance to another.

The Job Subsystem

Jobs in SQL Server are part of the SQL Agent subsystem, which means they’re a part of SQL Server, but not really. Maybe the one part of the jobs that is really complex is getting the code for the job. You either need to use an SMO interface and script out the job, or you can decode the tables in msdb. Neither of which is handy.

We do need to move jobs, though. Perhaps the most common places I need to copy jobs around is for a DR (disaster recovery) situation. Clustering will move jobs from node to node as it covers the instance, but all the other technologies (AGs, Log Shipping, Mirroring), all of these only work with databases. So items like jobs need to be manually moved.

That’s not good.

Over time, we’ll edit, add, change jobs, but I’ve never seen anyone do a great job of actually ensuring the DR systems are up to date with jobs, logins, etc. all the time. There’s too much of a manual process.

That can change with Copy-SqlJob. I can now not only copy particular jobs between an instance, I can use a –Force command to ensure the copy takes place. This means that I can easily ensure the most recent version of my job is copied over. Or I can just skip this, and if the job exists, it’s not copied.

Running the Cmdlet

It’s easy to use this cmdlet. It can use Windows Auth or SQL Auth. It’s up to you. The documentation leaves something to be desired, so you’ll need to use the PowerShell Get-Help to learn what parameters exist.

For a simple copy, I’ll move all jobs from one instance to another. Here are the jobs on my primary SQL Server 2016 instance.

These are administrative, backup jobs and index jobs from Ola Hallengren. I don’t have these on my QA instance, which isn’t good.

Suppose this is a new instance and I want to add them? I can use Copy-SqlJob, but I want to know what will happen. I’ll use the –Source and –Destination parameters and then include a –Whatif. This gives me a list of jobs that will be copied, and those that won’t be.

If I use the –Force parameter, you’ll see that all jobs are copied.

Well, not copied, but they will be.

I could limit this to specific jobs. For example, let me just copy over these jobs
- DatabaseBackup – SYSTEM_DATABASES – FULL
- DatabaseBackup – USER_DATABASES – FULL
When I run the command with the –Jobs parameter, I see just these jobs moved:

Let’s actually do that. Once I remove the “”-Whatif” and run the command, I see this:

Note, this doesn’t actually move the dependent objects. Meaning the first job uses this procedure: [dbo].[DatabaseBackup]

I’d have to make sure this is copied separately for the job to actually run and succeed. Right now it will fail with an error that an object can’t be found. However, if you have jobs that you are using in a DR situation, this ensures the job itself is moved over.

Rather than copy the syspolicy_purge_history job, I’ll exclude it. I can do that with the –Exclude parameter. Note that the two jobs I’ve already copied are shown as warnings.

All the parts of the job itself are copied. The description, the owner, the comments, the schedule, the steps. Everything is copied, which makes this perfect for ensuring that when you deploy a job, it can be deployed to all of the places you need it deployed by copying it from the source.

Of course, you’ll also want to ensure you use some method to disable the jobs on the DR instances (along with re-enabling them on failover).
December 2, 2016
Hey Posh, Are My Services Running?–#SQLNewBlogger
Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

In a previous post, I looked at escaping strings. The reason I needed to do this was that I was trying to do some automatic work with building and starting SQL Server instances. Part of laying the base for this was checking if services are running, and then perhaps taking action, like starting or stopping.

I knew there was a Get-Service command, and ran that. The output from this is much more than I’d like to consume.

I’d like to limit this to SQL Server services. I know there is usually an MSSQLServer service, but since I tend to use named instances, this doesn’t work. Plus, I don’t want to search for just a particular service. I want all services for SQL Server.

There is a Where-Object command, that allows me to search. There is also a –Like option for comparisons. I’ll structure a command like this:
```
Get-Service | Where-Object ($_.Name –Like “SQL*”)
```
That is less than successful.

Why not? Well, PoSh has some syntax requirements and one of them here is that I don’t want parenthesis, I want curly braces. If I change this, things work better.

If you’re older like me and don’t necessarily read small print easily, this might be one that catches you for a bit. However, notice that I only have my SQLAgent and system services, not the core database engine. My wildcard needs work.

Now I see all my services and I can easily decide if I want to stop, start, restart, etc.

#SQLNewBlogger

This was a quick post. It took me 10 minutes to relearn a few PoSh things and practice and then about 5 minutes to write this.

I’ll remember it, and it shows how I’m building my administrative skills. You should do that as well.
December 1, 2016
What’s the little popup window in #SQLPrompt?

Awhile back I was working in SSMS and saw this window.

It threw me off since I was trying to write some code and hadn’t expected it. I clicked Escape, Enter, a few things and was getting frustrated when it disappeared.

I ignored it until I saw the window again and then investigated. I’m glad I did because I was able to answer a question from someone else recently that didn’t know how to get rid of it.

Tl;Dr CTRL will make it appear or disappear.

When I am working with SQL Prompt, it’s in the background. I usually just depend on it to pop up some code or give me information. This means when I have a cursor, there’s no sign of SQL Prompt. Notice this below.

As soon as I select an area, as little as one space, I get a small SQL Prompt window in the left sidebar. As you can see in the image below, this has a down arrow on it.

I can click on this, but being a keyboard person whenever possible, I accidently discovered that CTRL will expand this, as shown below.

What threw me initially is that not all my snippets are in this list. Only those that have the $SELECTEDTEXT$ token inside them. These are handy snippets that I want to use to encapsulate text.

For example, let me surround a simple query.

I see the SQL Prompt icon and can click CTRL to open the list. If I type “cv”, I get the Create View snippet.

Once I then hit tab, I get the snippet with my query inside.

This is especially handy with things like TRY..CATCH, where I can write the TRY part and then quickly surround it with the structure.

Once you get used to this, and learn not to habitually tap the CTRL key (as I do), you’ll find this list of snippets handy. And if you don’t like them, just tap CTRL and get rid of the list.

November 30, 2016
Rate a Session for GroupBy

One of the things that I struggle with is understanding whether a session at a conference like a SQL Saturday is worth watching. I also struggle writing abstracts and attracting people to my own sessions, so I think the idea of GroupBy allowing rating and reviewing of abstracts in advance is fantastic.

First, let me encourage many of you to go take a minute today and rate an abstract. If you see something that you like, leave a note. If you aren’t sure of something, or don’t like something, or even have a question about the content, leave that note as well.

I’ve been fortunate to attend lots of events. I speak at many, but I try to view a session or two at each as well. I’ve seen some great ones, and some poor ones. I do try to provide constructive criticism, and I do so privately. If you’d like feedback from me at any event, please ask.

One of the things I’ve seen is that the abstract often doesn’t quite match the talk, or the abstract doesn’t really help me understand what will be covered. It doesn’t matter if someone has tried to write a cute description or a plain boring one, the writing doesn’t always match the talk well.

I know I make mistakes in my abstracts. I know sometimes I write something that I realize later isn’t quite what I think will work in the talk. I’d like the chance to edit and correct small items. More importantly, I’d like to be sure that if my abstract topic (and talk) could slightly be tweaked in a way that more people like, I want to do it.

Take a minute and give some feedback. Be honest, rate what you want, don’t take up too much of your day, and help improve the conference schedule.

I’d love to see PASS implement this as well for the Summit. I realize this can be hard, but I would prefer to see some give and take in advance to help build the best set of sessions that people want to attend.

November 29, 2016