PowerShell for SQL Server Essentials

PowerShell providers

Simply put, a PowerShell provider provides a way for PowerShell to access a data store. To get a visual of a provider, think of the file system. The file system is a data store that contains information about files and folders and their properties. We can access the file system via the Command Prompt, PowerShell console, or Windows Explorer. Now try to apply this concept to another data store, for example, SQL Server. Imagine that you can navigate through the objects of SQL Server just the way you navigate your file system.

Learning about providers is important because this allows you to extend what you can do with PowerShell. To list the current providers in your system, use the Get-PSProvider cmdlet:

What you see in the preceding ...