PSC:\Projects\Migration>Start-DbaMigration @paramsPerforming instance migration
Migrating databases
[oooooooooooooooo]Type Name---- ----Database Certificate AGCertificate2021_2121Custom error 60000:'us_english'Mail Configuration Server ConfigurationMail Account The DBA TeamMail Profile The DBA TeamMail Server smtp.ad.localCMS Group ProductionCMS Instance SQL Server 2005 EntCMS Instance SQL Server 2005CMS Instance SQL Server 2008 R2 InstanceCMS Instance SQL Server 2008CMS Instance SQL Server 2012CMS Group TestCMS Instance SQL Server 2000 DevCMS Instance SQL Server 2005 Express InstanceCMS Instance The 2008 Clustered InstanceServer Trigger tr_MScdc_db_ddl_event
dbatools is a free, open-source PowerShell module with 600+ commands for SQL Server automation. Manage one instance or thousands with simple, consistent commands.
Trusted by enterprise teams worldwide
What you can do with dbatools
From daily operations to critical projects
🚀
Start-DbaMigration
Migrate entire SQL Server instances in minutes, not days
📸
Export-DbaInstance
Capture complete instance configurations for disaster recovery
✅
Test-DbaLastBackup
Verify every backup actually restores before you need it
🔒
Start-DbaDbEncryption
Enable TDE encryption without manual certificate management
🔄
Invoke-DbaDbLogShipping
Set up log shipping for minimal downtime migrations
⚡
Update-DbaInstance
Automate SQL Server patching across your entire estate
Latest Articles
Tips, guides, and updates from the dbatools community
If you work in an offline environment, you’re probably familiar with how painful it can be to install anything, including PowerShell modules like dbatools.
In the past, dbatools had no dependencies, so the installation process was somewhat straightforward — you could even download a zip from our GitHub repo. However, with the introduction of the new dbatools.library dependency, the installation process has become a smidge more complex. In this post, I’ll walk you through the steps to install dbatools (and with it, dbatools.
SQL Client Aliases allow you to connect to a SQL Server instance using another name. This is especially useful during migrations. Want your servers to connect to the new SQL Server without modifying connection strings within your application? Or what if you could use easy-to-remember names for your docker containers? SQL Client Aliases can help.
For the longest time, I managed these aliases using cliconfg for 64-bit applications (C:\Windows\System32\cliconfg.exe) or cliconfg for 32-bit applications (C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cliconfg.
Within dbatools, you may notice file sizes are pretty and human-readable.
That was some C# based magic created by Microsoft PFE and creator of PSFramework, Fred Weinmann. In the background, SQL Server often gives us different types of numbers to represent file sizes. Sometimes it’s bytes, sometimes it’s megabytes. We wanted to standardize the sizing in dbatools, and thus the dbasize type was born.
Usage This size type is cool because it looks beautiful, showing KB, MB, GB, TB and PB.
After nearly 10 months of work, early access to Learn dbatools in a Month of Lunches is now available from our favorite publisher, Manning Publications!
For years, people have asked if any dbatools books are available and the answer now can finally be yes, mostly 😊. Learn dbatools in a Month of Lunches, written by me and Rob Sewell (the DBA with the beard), is now available for purchase, even as we’re still writing it.
Recently, a colleague asked me to assist with the migration of some older, customized application databases to a SQL Server 2017 instance. Most of the migrations I perform are rather vanilla, but this one was a bit more involved.
Setup Imagine this scenario:
Source (APPSQL1) Dedicated SQL Server 2008 R2 failover clustered instance with a non-default collation (SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI) Custom .NET application with an intense database containing a non-default collation (also SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AI), multiple CLR assemblies, and thousands of tables, views, stored procedures, functions Nearly 30 SQL Agent jobs, many of which had to be disabled over the years due to compatibility issues and scope changes Out-of-support for both Microsoft and the application vendor Destination (APPSQL2) Shared server SQL Server 2017 Default collation (SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS) There was even a linked server in the mix, but our biggest concerns revolved around the changing collation and the Agent jobs, which were known to be brittle.
Some dbatools functionality that has not been talked about much on the blog are our internal configuration options. This functionality was added back in October 2017. Kind of like how in ADS or SSMS, you can go to File -> Preferences -> Settings or Edit -> Preferences to edit advanced preferences and options, you can do something similar in dbatools!
Since dbatools is command-line based, you can view/modify your current options using our various config commands.
Install dbatools and get started in seconds. Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
# Install
Install-Module dbatools
# Check who's connected right now
Get-DbaProcess -SqlInstance sql01
Community ❤️ dbatools
Jeffrey Snover
PowerShell Inventor, Technical Fellow
If you use SQL, someone on the team should be a dbatools pro.
Steve Jones
MVP & SQLServerCentral.com
If you haven't played with dbatools, I'd recommend you do so; it makes working with SQL and PowerShell much easier.
Argenis Fernandez
Microsoft, MCM, vExpert
I can't stress enough how good dbatools is. Stop doing it the hard way.
Anthony Nocentino
MVP, Author, Speaker
It's impossible to quantify the impact this project has had on our community and the tech that we work with. Everyone I introduce to dbatools is blown away by how much this enables productivity and allows DBAs to scale with their systems.
Joey D'Antoni
MVP, vExpert, DCAC
dbatools is an amazing project. Tasks like server migrations that used to take me hours can now be completed in seconds, and with total confidence.
Gianluca Sartori
Data Platform MVP, Formula 1 DBA
dbatools is the best thing that happened to SQL Server in the last 5 years.
Jeffery Hicks
MVP, Author
If you are a SQL person you need to check out the dbatools PowerShell project.
Mike Martin
Technical Evangelist, Microsoft
If there was a thing such as MVP for MVP'S then dbatools would probably win it.
André Kamman
MVP & Dutch PASS Chapter Leader
dbatools are the most important PowerShell scripts for SQL Server DBAs.
Nikhil Chintalapudi
SQL Server DBA
Thank you for this module. It's very helpful for a someone like me trying to automate database tasks without very much PowerShell experience.
Michael J Swart
Data Platform MVP
This dev just used dbatools to install and migrate 50 db machines at once with little effort or errors. It's truly the easy button.
Andy Nakamura
SQL Saturday Speaker
I had been seriously thinking of quitting the SQL space altogether and decided to get into other things, but this has got to be a great addition to becoming a better DBA.
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Join millions of users and hundreds of contributors shaping the future of SQL Server automation, built by the community for the community since 2014.
