Sql-server – Unattended SQL install on a remote machine

installationsql serversql-server-2008-r2sql-server-2012

My product installation does an unattended install of SQL Server (SQL Server Express by default). I use command line arguments rather than a configuration file, so I'm quite familiar with this process.

This unattended install occurs on the same machine that my install media is running on. However I need to look at installing the SQL Server instance on a separate machine to what the install media is running on. The target machine will be on the same network.

Is it possible to do this unattended? If so, is it simply extra command line arguments or is it a different process (i.e. a PowerShell script)?

Best Answer

@MaxVermon mentioned PSExec.exe from sysinternals as a good way to spawn installation on a remote machine.

I would suggest to use : Scripted PowerShell Automated Deployment Engine (SPADE) for SQL Server.

From codeplex :

SPADE simplifies the process of standing up a new SQL Server instance by applying standard Operating System pre-configurations, Installing SQL Server and then applying post-configurations and creating standard objects.

SPADE is a tool that is designed to speed up your standard deploymets of SQL Server. You may be saying "But I can already do an unsattended install"...but that's not all that's involved in most server builds. There are Operating System configurations like Microsoft Distrubuted Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC), Local Security Policy and others. I'm sure that you also have standard SQL objects that need to be deployed like Stored Procedures, Agent Jobs, Operators, etc. All of this can be done by SPADE automatically by running 1 simple PowerShell script.

Every organization is different, so this tool has been built so that it can easily be customized without requiring you to be a master of PowerShell. A simple XML configuration file defines the options for your standard build. For those non-standard, or "one-off" builds, the script has been defined so that you can change things for a single build without having to change the configuration file.

The current release supports standalone installs of SQL 2005, 2008, 2008R2, and "Denali".

Kevin Kline has a good post on Free Tool Review: Scripted PowerShell Automated Deployment Engine

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