Powershell SMO Problem

April 16, 2010 at 10:14 am (PowerShell, SQL Server 2008, SQLServerPedia Syndication) (, , , , , , )

We’ve been running the Enterprise Policy Management tools available from Codeplex for a few months now (Thanks to Buck Woody’s (blog | twitter) session at the PASS Summit). They’re honestly great. It’s a fantastic way to use Policy Based Management on 2000 and 2005 servers. We did hit some issues with timeouts and looking at the script, it made a call to invoke-sqlcmd, but didn’t pass the -querytimeout value. That means it default to 30 seconds and the import to database process was taking more than a minute for some of our queries. I did a little looking around and decided to just disable the timeout by passing a value of zero (0). But, I still got timeouts. Finally, after a bit of searching around, I found a closed (because it was posted in the wrong place) Connect item. It’s pretty simple to test. If you want to see a good run, do this:

Invoke-Sqlcmd “waitfor delay ’00:00:29′” -Database master -ServerInstance SomeServer -Querytimeout 0

It’ll work fine. Change it to this:

Invoke-Sqlcmd “waitfor delay ’00:00:31′” -Database master -ServerInstance SomeServer -Querytimeout 0

You’ll get a timeout. I don’t know if this is a bug or by design, but it’s a bit of a pain that you can’t simply bypass the timeout. There is a max value (a huge max value) 65535, but what happens if I run a sql command that runs longer than that?. Please go and vote on the new Connect item.

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Excel Within Management Studio

January 13, 2010 at 2:43 pm (SQL Server 2008) (, , , )

Aaron Bertrand has put in a Connect request for a feature whereby data returned as a grid from a query can just go right into an Excel spreadsheet. All in favor? Opposed? Motion passed. Go and vote this one up, up, up.

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Operations Manager Feedback

October 13, 2009 at 2:14 pm (SCOM) (, , )

If you’re involved with maintaining Microsoft Operations Manager, you probably have a few things you’d like to tell the developers, such as, couldn’t you get some sort of override manager/explorer built into the system? Well, they’ve built a new feedback mechanism through the updated Connect interface. Get on over there and make your voice heard.

Yeah, I wasn’t really tracking it either until I saw this post from the OM development team’s blog.

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Pushing Connect

April 17, 2009 at 7:28 am (PASS) (, , , )

I have posted multiple times that I think Microsoft Connect is one of the best tools you can use to communicate with Microsoft. It works. Buck Woody is reinforcing my position from the Microsoft side of the fence.

Look, Microsoft is not a small nimble company like Red Gate. And again, unlike Red Gate, you might not find yourself in a conversation with the CEO of Microsoft on the floor of a conference like the PASS Summit. And short of going to PASS or TechEd to track down some of the developers and project managers (many of whom attend these conferences), you need to have a mechanism to communicate with the company. You can try standing on your front door step and screaming (trust me, the neighbors just call the police) or you can go to Connect.

Speaking of the PASS Summit, the Call for Speakers is open for a few more days. Please, don’t go over there and submit fantastic sessions that all of us will benefit from. Please, sit on your hands and ignore me. That way there’s less competition and I’ll get to present!

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Connect Works

March 27, 2009 at 7:49 pm (SQL Server 2008) (, )

Microsoft Connect works. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but it really does work. You will get the attention of MS developers and they will respond. It’s not always fast, but it gets there.

Of course, I was trying to create samples for the book, which came out almost two weeks ago, so this is a bit late for me personally… HA! But it really does work.

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SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3

April 7, 2008 at 11:53 am (SQL Server 2005) (, , , )

No, this isn’t an announcement. This is a request. Please follow this link and read Steve Jones’ argument in favor of getting an SP3. Please give it a high rating and a validation. Connect works. Microsoft does listen.

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