Here’s a quick catalog for my students of PowerShell, JavaScript, and Python examples connecting to MySQL:

• MySQL Powershell Connection with .Net Library Example
• MySQL Powershell Connection with ODBC DSN Example
• MySQL Powershell with CSV File Write Example
• MySQL Powershell with Dialog for Dynamic Connection Inputs
• MySQL Node.js Introduction without Bind …

Almost a Ripley’s Believe It or Not. An prior data science student told me that his new IT department setup a Windows component that let him connect his Excel Spreadsheets to their production MySQL database without a password. Intrigued, I asked if it was a MySQL Connector/ODBC Data Source Configuration, or DSN (Data Source Name)?

He wasn’t sure, so I asked him to connect to PowerShell and run the following command:

Get-Item -Path Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI\MySQL

It returned something like this (substituting output from one of my test systems):

    Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI


Name                           Property
----                           --------
MySQL                          Driver      : C:\Program Files\MySQL\Connector ODBC 8.0\myodbc8w.dll
                               DESCRIPTION : MySQL ODBC Connector
                               SERVER      : …

About a month ago, I published how you can connect to MySQL with a small form. One suggestion, or lets promote it to a request, from that post was: “Nice, but how do you create a reusable library for the MySQL Connection Dialog box?”

That was a good question but I couldn’t get back until now to write a new blog post. This reusable MySQL connection dialog lets you remove MySQL connection data from the command-line history. This post also shows you how to create and test a Powershell Module.

The first step to create a module requires that you set the proper %PSModulePath% environment variable. If you fail to do that, you can put it into a default PowerShell module location but that’s not too effective for testing. You launch the System Properties dialog and click the Environment …

Wrote this several months ago but was too busy to publish :-/

As noted in one of the previous blog post, I will use following terminology:

• "Processor" is a piece of hardware you connect to a socket on the motherboard.
• "Physical Core" is a physical computing unit built into the "Processor".
• "Virtual Core" is a virtual computing unit built on top of "Physical Core" (i.e. HT is ON).
• "CPU" is a computing unit inside the "Processor", either physical or virtual.

After a series of blogs on Windows performance counters and after releasing sysb.ps1 testing/benchmarking framework version 0.9RC (dbt2-0.37.50.10) I set out to eliminate some unknowns from the testing. First to tackle …

In my previous post, I spoke of "Normalized" and "Non-Normalized" CPU utilization values:
--
TABLE:Foreword: Windows is not "process" based OS (like Linux) but rather "thread" based so all of the numbers relating to CPU usage are approximations. I did made a "proper" CPU per Process looping and summing up Threads counter (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394279%28v=vs.85%29.aspx) based on PID but that proved too slow given I have ~1 sec to deal with everything. CPU utilization using RAW counters with 1s delay between samples proved to produce a bit more reliable result than just reading Formatted counters but, again, too slow for my 1s ticks (collect sample, wait 1s, collect sample, do the math takes longer than 1s). Thus I use PerfFormatted counters in version 0.9RC.

Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_Process;  …

Welcome to the final blog in Windows PerfCounters and Powershell series and sorry for the delay. The purpose of this blog is to explain the inner workings of top-script.ps1 script and practical usage of Performance counters on Windows through Powershell. It is intended for people who want Linux top - like tool on Windows.

The script is a part of and available in our existing benchmarking package (dbt2-0.37.50.10) developed by Mikael Ronstrom.

On Top:If you ever did benchmarking on Linux or simply wondered "where did all my resources go", top is your best friend. Since this post is not about Linux, you can google "Linux top explained" for more details.


On Performance counters:To learn about Windows PerfCounters, please refer to my previous …

In previous blog, I covered DISK/IO counters. This blog will briefly touch on Network, Threading and Contention.

Other counters:
Network I/OCOUNTER: Network Interface\Bytes Total/sec
TYPE: Instantaneous
USAGE:

#Get Instances
PS > (New-Object Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterCategory("Network Interface")).GetInstanceNames("")

Intel[R] Centrino[R] Advanced-N 6205
Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter _2
Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter
Intel[R] 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection

PS > New-Object Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter("Network Interface",
"Bytes Total/sec", "Intel[R] 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection")

CategoryName …

This post is the hardest for me to write as I generally pay little attention to disks. When they prove too slow, I replace them with faster ones. So now I am writing this on laptop with two SSDs. That said, Disk subsystem could be a major system performance bottleneck and thus there are numerous counters covering this area (Get-CimClass *disk* | Select CimClassName). I would also like to turn your attention to old yet excellent article Top Six FAQs on Windows 2000 Disk Performance if you're interested in subject.

Disk counters:Note: Microsoft recommends that "when attempting to analyse disk performance bottlenecks, you should always use physical disk counters. However, if you use software RAID, you should use logical disk counters. As for Logical Disk and Physical Disk Counters, the same values are available in each of these …

In the last blog I spoke of CPU counters. Now, I'll talk of Memory counters.

MEMORY Counters (CIM_PhysicalMemory class, Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Memory class, Memory Performance Information ...): Note: I introduced the notion of samples and how to fetch them using NextValue() so I will occasionally omit $var.NextValue() going forward.

Let me note here that if you thought previously described performance classes were complicated, you are now entering the realm of black magic ;-) There is a good …

So far, I talked of WMI, CIM, WQL, System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterCategory, perf-counter data organization and flavour. Now it's time to look at some performance counters I deem important for my use-case more closely.
Note: List of available Counters for Get-Counter command
Get-Counter -ListSet * | Sort-Object CounterSetName | Format-Table CounterSetName

Basic concepts:I will introduce basic concepts of Processor, Core and CPU now to help you follow the text. Let us use this convention:

• "Processor" is a piece of hardware you connect to a slot on the motherboard.
• "Physical Core" is a physical computing unit built into the "Processor".
• "Virtual Core" is a virtual computing unit built on top of "Physical Core" (i.e. HT is ON).
• "CPU" is a computing unit inside the "Processor", either physical or virtual.

…