PowerShell_SQLite_Report
Create a report with data from a CSV file and Web Service
The Problem
One product has data about servers, but limited reporting functionality.
Another product has different data about servers, but custom reporting is done by the reporting group. A web service is available for querying and searching the web service however...
The Goal
Combine data from two different sources (a CSV and Web Service) into a report that shows what servers are in both systems and which servers are in one inventory system but not the other.
The Solution
Obtaining the data from both sources in PowerShell was so easy, why wouldn't comparing the data and matching up records be equally easy?
I was wrong, obtaining and transforming the data in PowerShell was easy, but matching up records was a slow painstaking process in PowerShell.
Many times I found myself thinking "this would be so easy if it was a database! I could just do a SQL JOIN..."
So I looked into putting data into a database. MS-SQL and MS Access all took some setup, and then I found PSSQLite. (https://github.com/RamblingCookieMonster/PSSQLite)
The PSSQLite module was perfect. I could quickly and easily create a database, and even though SQLite doesn't implement every join type that is easy to work around, espically when you can combine PowerShell result objects with a plus sign. ($combinedResult = $SQLQueryResult1 + $SQLQueryResult2)
Watching the first run of the PSSQLite version of the script was just magic. Or something.
Things have been sanitized so this version of the script si mainly an example.