SMO – SQL Server Management Objects

by Nov 18, 2014

Categories

Tags

Administration agent-based monitoring Agentless Monitoring alert responses alert thresholds alerting Alerts Amazon Aurora Amazon EC2 Amazon RDS Amazon RDS / Aurora Amazon RDS for SQL Server Amazon Redshift Amazon S3 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Analytics application monitoring Aqua Data Studio automation availability Azure Azure SQL Database azure sql managed instance Azure VM backup Backup and recovery backup and restore backup compression backup status Backup Strategy backups big data Blocking bug fixes business architecture business data objects business intelligence business process modeling business process models capacity planning change management cloud cloud database cloud database monitoring cloud infrastructure cloud migration cloud providers Cloud Readiness Cloud Services cloud storage cloud virtual machine cloud VM clusters code completion collaboration compliance compliance audit compliance audits compliance manager compliance reporting conference configuration connect to database cpu Cross Platform custom counters Custom Views customer survey customer testimonials Dark Theme dashboards data analysis Data Analytics data architect data architecture data breaches Data Collector data governance data lakes data lineage data management data model data modeler data modeling data models data privacy data protection data security data security measures data sources data visualization data warehouse database database administration database administrator database automation database backup database backups database capacity database changes database community database connection database design database developer database developers database development database diversity Database Engine Tuning Advisor database fragmentation database GUI database IDE database indexes database inventory management database locks database management database migration database monitoring database navigation database optimization database performance Database Permissions database platforms database profiling database queries database recovery database replication database restore database schema database security database support database synchronization database tools database transactions database tuning database-as-a-service databases DB Change Manager DB Optimizer DB PowerStudio DB2 DBA DBaaS DBArtisan dBase DBMS DDL Debugging defragmentation Demo diagnostic manager diagnostics dimensional modeling disaster recovery Download drills embedded database Encryption End-user Experience entity-relationship model ER/Studio ER/Studio Data Architect ER/Studio Enterprise Team Edition events execution plans free tools galera cluster GDPR Getting Started Git GitHub Google Cloud Hadoop Healthcare high availability HIPAA Hive hybrid clouds Hyper-V IDERA IDERA ACE Index Analyzer index optimization infrastructure as a service (IaaS) infrastructure monitoring installation Integrated Development Environment interbase Inventory Manager IT infrastructure Java JD Edwards JSON licensing load test load testing logical data model macOS macros managed cloud database managed cloud databases MariaDB memory memorystorage memoryusage metadata metric baselines metric thresholds Microsoft Azure Microsoft Azure SQL Database Microsoft PowerShell Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft Windows MongoDB monitoring Monitoring Tools Monyog multiple platforms MySQL news newsletter NoSQL Notifications odbc optimization Oracle PeopleSoft performance Performance Dashboards performance metrics performance monitoring performance schema performance tuning personally identifiable information physical data model Platform platform as a service (PaaS) PostgreSQL Precise Precise for Databases Precise for Oracle Precise for SQL Server Precise Management Database (PMDB) product updates Project Migration public clouds Query Analyzer query builder query monitor query optimization query performance Query Store query tool query tuning query-level waits Rapid SQL rdbms real time monitoring Real User Monitoring recovery regulations relational databases Releases Reporting Reports repository Restore reverse engineering Roadmap sample SAP Scalability Security Policy Security Practices server monitoring Server performance server-level waits Service Level Agreement SkySQL slow query SNMP snowflake source control SQL SQL Admin Toolset SQL CM SQL code SQL coding SQL Compliance Manager SQL Defrag Manager sql development SQL Diagnostic Manager SQL Diagnostic Manager for MySQL SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server SQL Diagnostic Manager Pro SQL DM SQL Doctor SQL Enterprise Job Manager SQl IM SQL Inventory Manager SQL Management Suite SQL Monitoring SQL Performance SQL Quality SQL query SQL Query Tuner SQL Safe Backup SQL script SQL Secure SQL Security Suite SQL Server sql server alert SQL Server Migration SQL Server Performance SQL Server Recommendations SQL Server Security SQL statement history SQL tuning SQL Virtual Database sqlmemory sqlserver SQLyog Storage Storage Performance structured data Subversion Support tempdb tempdb data temporal data Tips and Tricks troubleshooting universal data models universal mapping unstructured data Uptime Infrastructure Monitor user experience user permissions Virtual Machine (VM) web services webinar What-if analysis WindowsPowerShell

SMO stands for Shared Management Objects. It is a SQL administration API used to get meta data information from SQL Server. You may ask “Why? I can already do that”. True, but what if your only need was to have a tool that could do some of the following:

  1. Backups and restores
  2. Create some test databases
  3. Maybe even export some SQL Server related information to an Excel Spreadsheet

This tutorial focuses on getting started using this powerful API in your .NET applications. Mind you, this is not a replacement for SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). This tutorial just gives you the initial steps you need to progress more in the SMO related technosphere.

What Do You Need to get Started?

  1. SQL Server 2005 onwards
  2. Shared Management Objects Installed (Required Assemblies)
  3. Visual Studio Professional or Express editions (2005 onwards)

..and finally, the will and enthusiasm to build your first SMO application.

For this tutorial we’ll be using:

  • Visual Basic 2010 Express Edition
  • SQL Server 2008 SP1 with Shared Management Objects
  • Along with the following assemblies to be imported:
    • Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo
    • Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Sdk.Sfc
    • Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo
    • Microsoft.SqlServer.SqlEnum

What Are We Going to Accomplish?

To keep things simple we are going to populate a list of databases from the SQL Server Express instance, similar to SQL Server Management Studio. Let’s begin.

1) Launch Visual Basic Express Edition 2010. Click on File > New Project > Windows Application as shown in the screen below. Enter the Project name as you please. I have entered SMOApp:

New SMO Project

2) Now from the Toolbox place a TreeView Control onto the Form. Dock it to the left.

3) Next let us turn our attention to adding the needed assemblies. Right click on References > Add Reference:

Add an assembly to the project

4) Now your References should resemble as shown below:

Project references

5) So now that everything’s in place, let’s start coding!! Yeah!!

Double click the form to launch the Code Window and copy and paste the code as shown below:

Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo

Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common

Public Class Form1

Public Sub LoadDB()
'Declare an instance of the Server Class along with the Connection String

Dim Mysvr As New Server(".\SQLEXPRESS")

'Declare a Database Variable that will enumerate in the TreeView

Dim db As New Database

'Now iterate through the list of databases within the server

For Each db In Mysvr.Databases
'We are now going to populate the TreeView Nodes with the Databases

TreeView1.Nodes.Add(db.Name)
Next

End Sub

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) HandlesMyBase.Load

Try
LoadDB()
Catch ex As SqlServerManagementException
MessageBox.Show("Error" + ex.Message"Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK,MessageBoxIcon.Error)
End Try
End Sub
End Class

I have added some beautification to simulate it like a real Database Explorer as shown below. Feel free to experiment with your own images. The final output is shown below:

Database Explorer

Well, wasn’t that easy :-) ?

The next article in the series is coming soon. Do let me know your feedback.