Kevin's Ramblings » Page 4 of 11 » Adding my own 2¢ to the Technology Communities

Patching Machines (or Shut-up Alerts!)

November 19, 2020March 28, 2018 by Kevin

Over the years, I’ve worked for various organizations and most have had a fairly routine process for applying patches. The best of these uses a defined Change Management window during which the patches were deployed and the computers rebooted (if necessary). This post is not a recommendation on when to do this or how to do … Read more

Dungeon Mastering in IT

July 16, 2018January 31, 2018 by Kevin

I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) since I was about 16 years old. It was also about that time (possibly coincidentally) that I also became engrossed with computing. Not just watching-my-fake-family-die-from-dysentery computing, but how computers worked and why the field of computing was important.

Simulate User Message Sends leveraging EWS

November 19, 2020January 30, 2018 by Kevin

If you’ve read any of my posts in the past, you know that I’ve got a lab at the office. Part of this includes a handful of Exchange Servers. To better simulate “real-world” (not stress-test) simulations, I want to send messages around the organization. Thankfully, I’ve had some experience with Exchange Web Services (EWS) in the past.

SAM & Multi-Statistic Component Scripts

November 19, 2020January 10, 2018 by Kevin

In September I wrote a few things about how I use SAM Script Templates – specifically with PowerShell. One of the more powerful things in the SAM arsenal is the ability to return multiple components in a single script. I’ve used this in any number of ways, but the one that gives me the most satisfaction is a PowerShell script that I wrote for Linux.

Scripting SQL Server Installation

November 19, 2020December 21, 2017 by Kevin

This is where I show that I’m really not a DBA. I’m an Accidental DBA at best, and a nuisance at worst. SQL Server already has the capability to be installed via command line parameters or a configuration file. If I setup the machine the same way every single time, this would be fine, but since I need to change the placement of certain file types, I need to have the ability to change on the fly.

Setup SQL Disks

November 19, 2020December 20, 2017 by Kevin

Yesterday, I wrote about how I setup SQL Servers Virtual Machines using PowerShell and PowerCLI. Now that I’ve got the SQL Server imaged, it’s time to format the disks and prep the Page File. Let’s dig in.

SQL Server on VM’s in my Lab

December 19, 2017 by Kevin

I’m trying to automate as much as possible in my lab and part of that is building SQL Servers. I’ve taken to trying to scripting this out. For me, that involves using PowerShell to build out this machine.

Simple Automation Example using Orion SDK

November 19, 2020December 6, 2017 by Kevin

A few months ago, I really stated digging into the Orion SDK and I wanted to know more about ways to automate adding nodes to Orion. Sure, I can wait for the Network Discovery to kick off, but I’m impatient. I’ve gotten many of the parts together over time, but this is my first post where I put everything together. For this version, I use the PowerShell Snap-In. I will add an additional post later using the PowerOrion Module.

Building My Orion Server Step 3 [Updated]

November 19, 2020November 15, 2017 by Kevin

A few months ago, I wrote about the third step in setting up an Orion server from scratch. After using this script for a few months, I realized there was an eventuality that I missed.

SAM PowerShell Scripting Template

November 19, 2020September 8, 2017 by Kevin

I write a lot of PowerShell scripts. Like a lot, a lot. I write them for any manner of things, but recently I’ve been tasked to help out with a few Server & Application Monitor templates. These are some of the most interesting things that SAM has to offer.

Looking at each of the scripts, I decided it was worth revisiting based on some of my newly acquired PowerShell superpowers (cape not included).

SAM script templates (Windows Scripting, PowerShell, Perl, Python, whatever) require two things – a statistic and an exit code.