[sllug-members]: Microsoft SQL Server

[Kevin Pendleton]

sllug-members-request at sllug.org wrote:
> From: Jackman <kd7nyq at gmail.com>
> Subject: [sllug-members]: Microsoft SQL Server
> To: "Salt Lake Linux Users Group Discussions"
> 	<sllug-members at sllug.org>
>
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> Where I work, everything revolves around a row of very large servers
> with MS Windows NT running Microsoft SQL Server.  To connect to this
> server, I use primarily Microsoft SQL Query Analyzer and Microsoft
> Enterprise Manager.  My work is generally very tedious, mostly because
> MS software doesn't script very well.  I can bring my laptop into
> work, however, or install cygwin and work from those machines if I so
> desired.  Scripting and collecting data would be so much easier on a
> linux box.  Still, I know that MySQL is the SQL database preference on
> Linux systems and so I am having a difficult time finding anything
> that advertises itself being compatible with Microsoft SQL Server.
> Does it even matter?  Thank you for your help and I look forward to
> your input.
>
> Andrew Jackman.
> W7MEZ.

I worked in a similar environment in the past (back in my past life as a 
Windows Admin) and found the best solution for me was to install Perl 
(the Windows version from ActiveState) on a server that had access to 
all the other servers.  As you probably know Perl is a cross platform 
language you can use as you administer any operating system.  In 
addition to the stock Perl code, there are also a bunch of Perl modules 
that are Windows specific that are useful for a ton of scenarios from 
user management to connecting to MS SQL databases (just as easily as you 
would connect to a MySQL database in Linux).  The trick with those 
modules is that they can not run from a Linux box, they utilize the 
Windows libraries, so you need to install them on a Windows machine.

http://www.activestate.com/Products/activeperl/

Of course, Microsoft has now created their PowerShell or whatever to 
make things easer to script, but just like VBscript was before it, they 
are languages that you can only use on their platform.  In my opinion, 
if you don't know any of these languages, you might as well learn Perl, 
since you can use it on any OS.  Good luck!

Kevin
http://utahsysadmin.com/