How to check what features are installed on your SQL environment

When you need to know more information about your SQL environment or cluster, you can check every SQL server separate from each other. This is time consuming to do, definitely if you have a big SQL cluster or environment.

You can use also automate this steps, to use this very simple command!

Go to your SQL environment and browse to the following directory (it depends per SQL version)
* SQL Server 2012 (110)
* SQL Server 2014 (120)
* SQL Server 2016 (130)
* SQL Server 2017 (140)
* SQL Server 2019 (150)
’%programfiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Setup Bootstrap\SQL2012” from the command prompt. Run the command:
’setup.exe /ACTION=RunDiscovery’

By default, there will be created a new file called ‘Summary.txt’, with the configuration of your SQL environment, cluster or AOAG if you’re using Always-On Availability Groups.. Not very usefull and readable. Not very readable, so now Powershell comes in!

Start Powershell and run the following command:
Get-Content “<location of your summary.txt file>. Now you get a report!!

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Happy New Year!!

With a few days to go, 2017 is there!! 2016 was a really great year. The number of visitors on my blog is growing every day, so hopefully this will continue in 2017.

I want to thank all the sponsors for the support on my blog!! Also special thanks to all the visitors on my blog!

I wish all of you a happy new year and a great 2017!!!

Happy-New-Year-2017

Demo movie: Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016

The following movie shows the power of Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016. From the local disks, to storage pools and cluster, all the layers are explained!! Very useful when you want to know exactly how Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) works.

Software Defined will be the feature! So prepare yourself….. 🙂

Free Whitepaper: Understand Microsoft Hyper Converged Solution

This whitepaper is written by Romain Serre and Charbel Nemnom which describes Microsoft Hyper-Converged solution in Windows Server 2016 using Storage Spaces Direct, Hyper-V and network technologies. The second part of this document shows an example of this implementation.

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This document is written with my friend Charbel Nemnom which covers Hyper-Converged architecture in Windows Server 2016. This document describes technologies related to Microsoft Hyper-Converged model based on Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), Storage Quality of Service, ReFS, Hyper-V, Nano Server and some networking features such as RDMA, Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) and SMB.

In the second part of this document, we walk you through a step by step process on how to implement this solution on top of four virtual Nano Servers fully automated.

This document is with regards to the last Microsoft public information and the latest build of Windows Server 2016, we want to emphasize that this whitepaper will also be updated as we move forward to keep up with all the great things that is happening in the Microsoft CloudOS Platform.

We hope you find this document useful and helpful. If you have any questions, comments or errata you find in this whitepaper are welcome and encouraged.

Table of Contents:
Credit Page
Introduction
Software-Defined Networking
Software-Defined Compute
Software-Defined Storage
Nano Server
Windows Server 2016 Licensing
Implementation Guideline
Nano Server Deployments
Storage Spaces Direct Deployments
Host a VM on the solution
Storage Quality of Service
Conclusion
References

Free WhitePaper: Storage Efficiencies with Hyper-V at the Virtual and Physical Layer

Thin provisioning, UNMAP and checkpoints/snapshots are powerful technologies when used wisely. And to truly benefit, we must master them. This will allow us to better deliver storage and offer data protection.

While these technologies can be used at the physical layer (storage array), at the virtual layer (Hyper-V) or a combination of both, what we choose depends on the environment, budget and workloads. They offer:

  • cost reduction
  • operational benefits in ease of use
  • operational benefits in speed of recovering to points in time
  • operational benefits in offering data to Development Operations (DevOps) teams

This white paper will help you understand these concepts better in order to make better decisions for your needs.

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