This week, we’re sharing some of the Instant Replay videos from our training classes. First up is Drew Furgiuele talking about PowerShell functions and parameters:

That’s module 4.1 of Drew’s PowerShell for Database Administrators class. It’s 2 days of lectures and labs – Drew talks about how to do something, then gives you a challenge for you to accomplish in your lab VM. (Every student gets their own VM to follow along.)

The reviews are glowing.

Fantastic class! This is the best online training I’ve ever taken. Very slick setup using the webinar for learning, an AWS VM for labs, and slack for interacting with the class. This course teaches more than just PowerShell for SQL Server – the general training on day 1 will leave you ready to tackle anything with PowerShell. – Grant Schulte

Another:

Excellent class! As a PowerShell novice, I loved that the first day was spent learning the PowerShell basics and the second day was spent applying those theories to something I do know, SQL Server. The class was well paced with lots of challenging exercises. Drew is a great teacher. His knowledge and enthusiasm made the two days a fun and effective learning experience. I recommend this class for all DBA’s that want to add PowerShell to their toolbox.

And Instant Replay is a hit too – when you buy your seat, you can actually start watching Drew’s recordings right away:

I really enjoyed this class! I knew very little PowerShell and was intimidated when looking at scripts I found online. I feel much more comfortable trying my hand at PowerShell after taking this class. Drew was a great instructor, and I thought the material, demos, and labs were all very good. I also appreciate that the class recordings are available – I had to miss part of the class due to some work issues. Thanks!

Class Modules & Agenda

Day 1

• What is PowerShell? Writing Your First Script – In this section, we’ll learn what PowerShell is. We’ll cover the very basics, such as how variables work, and how to write code using different IDEs.
• Working with cmdlets and the pipeline – With the basics covered, we’ll move into more meaty code examples using cmdlets (command-lets). We’ll explore some handy built-in commands around working with the Windows file system.
• Working with objects – Objects make up a large part of the PowerShell experience, so understanding what they are is crucial. We’ll explore how they are created, how to access properties, and execute methods. We’ll also look at the most handy of all the PowerShell cmdlets.
• Logical operators and loops –  Once we have an understanding of basic PowerShell syntax, we’ll learn how to create iterations with loops and logical operators. We’ll cover basic loops (such as a While loop) and more advanced loops that let you iterate through collections of objects.
• Parameters and functions – Here we’re going to tie all our previous sections together and write our first function. We’ll also go over adding parameters to your scripts to make them re-runnable and also talk about other common parameters you can include.

Day 2

• The SQL Server PowerShell Module – We’ll kick off day 2 talking about the SQL Server PowerShell module, how you install it, and how you can use it to browse SQL Server.
• Scripting SQL Server objects with PowerShell – Tired of clicking through management studio to look at multiple objects? Want a way to take backups of your indexes? We’ll learn one how to take objects in SQL Server and script them out with PowerShell.
• SQL Agent and PowerShell – If you’ve ever wanted a better way to get a handle on all your SQL Agent Jobs and History, PowerShell is the answer. We’ll explore some handy ways to code some automation around the SQL Server Agent.
• SQL Server backups with PowerShell – Wouldn’t it be nice to standardize your SQL Server database backups, and never worry about adding or removing job steps for new or retired databases? In this section, we’ll look at using PowerShell to manage (and test!) your backups.
• Auditing SQL Server permissions – Hey, information security professionals are people too. So why not help make their lives a little easier? We’ll explore combining Active Directory and SQL Server PowerShell modules together to come up with a handy solution to audit your database permissions.
• Importing and exporting data – In this final section, we’ll look at PowerShell methods for importing and exporting data with SQL Server, including working with text files and other database servers.

Wanna join Drew’s next class on July 26-27? It’s on sale this week only for 50% off! Register now.