Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Best Practices Analyzer

The Microsoft SQL Server 2012 BPA is a diagnostic tool that performs the following functions:

• Gathers information about a Server and a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 instance installed on that Server
• Determines if the configurations are set according to the recommended best practices
• Reports on all configurations, indicating settings that differ from recommendations
• Indicates potential problems in the installed instance of SQL Server
• Recommends solutions to potential problems

Supported Operating Systems

Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

The following are required for using SQL Server 2012 Best Practices Analyzer:

• PowerShell V2.0
• Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer V2.0

Click the Download button on this page to start the download.
Do one of the following:

1. To start the installation immediately, click Open or Run this program from its current location.

2. To copy the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Save or Save this program to disk.

Important:
SQL Server 2012 BPA is able to scan both the local computer and remote computers. Therefore, in both the local and remote cases, it is required that your PowerShell settings be modified. The modifications support PowerShell remoting, and increase maximum number of concurrent shells for a user.
The following commands will be executed on the machine where the BPA analysis is initiated. You MUST check the “Select to continue…” box to apply these modifications, or select “cancel” to exit Setup.
Enable Remoting using "Enable-PSRemoting"- Performs configuration actions to enable this machine for remote management.

Includes:

• Runs the Set-WSManQuickConfig cmdlet, which performs the following tasks:
• Starts the WinRM service
• Sets the startup type on the WinRM service to Automatic
• Creates a listener to accept requests on any IP address
• Enables a firewall exception for WS-Management communications
• Enables all registered Windows PowerShell session configurations to receive instructions from a remote computer
• Registers the "Microsoft.PowerShell" session configuration, if it is not already registered
• Registers the "Microsoft.PowerShell32" session configuration on 64-bit computers, if it is not already registered
• Removes the "Deny Everyone" setting from the security descriptor for all the registered session configurations
• Restarts the WinRM service to make the preceding changes effective



• Configure MaxShellsPerUser using "winrm set winrm/config/winrs `@`{MaxShellsPerUser=`"10`"`}"



• Specifies the maximum number of concurrent shells that any user can remotely open on the same computer. If this policy setting is enabled, the user will not be able to open new remote shells if the count exceeds the specified limit. If this policy setting is disabled or is not configured, the limit will be set to 5 remote shells per user by default.



For more information about PowerShell remoting, please see : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384372(VS.85).aspx