PowerShell for SQL Server Essentials

PowerShell cmdlets

At the heart of PowerShell is a cmdlet (pronounced as commandlet). A cmdlet is described in MSDN (available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms714395(v=vs.85).aspx) as:

"… a lightweight command that is used in the Windows PowerShell environment.

… cmdlets perform an action and typically return a Microsoft .NET Framework object to the next command in the pipeline."

In other words, cmdlets get the job done in PowerShell. You can think of cmdlets as small commands—very specific commands—which you can use to accomplish your task.

To explore the cmdlets available in your PowerShell version, you can use the Get-Command cmdlet. You can filter the results as well. For example, if you want to look for log-related cmdlets, you can ...