Upgrade-SqlServerStandaloneDatabaseEngineInstance

### What this tool does This will perform an *impactful*, in-place, major version upgrade, such as SQL Server 2008 SP4 -> 2017 or 2008 R2 SP3 -> 2016, on a standalone SQL Server Database Engine instance on a Windows operating system. It can be run either locally, or remotely if deployed on a Windows VM in a vSphere environment such as VMware Cloud on AWS. You must supply your own SQL Server installation media and product key / license. The compatibility level of each database deployed on the target SQL Server instance will not be modified by this script, and *should* remain the same, but please test thoroughly. Please see the links below for additional resources such as Microsoft's best practices for planning your SQL Server instance upgrades, breaking changes and backwards compatibility, et cetera. Again, the upgrade process is impactful, so please test thoroughly and plan for application downtime. ### What this tool does not do !!! danger "Backups are *NOT* included" Backups are *NOT* included. Please make sure that you have implemented and verified proper backups, and that you have a recovery plan established that meets the recovery plan objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO). This tool does not accommodate the intricacies of upgrading any high availability (HA) SQL Server instance types including: - Replicated Databases - Mirrored Databases - Log Shipping Instances - Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) - AlwaysOn Availability Groups (AAG) This tool does not accommodate edition upgrades within the same version of SQL Server either. The checks run prior to the upgrade cannot test for every eventuality. In fact, most of the requirements and compatibility testing is delegated to Microsoft's SQL Server installation media since it was built with a robust testing framework. Please test thoroughly. ### Local upgrades For local upgrades, this script requires elevated privileges and must be run from PowerShell launched with the 'Run as Administrator' option. ### Remote upgrades For VMware PowerCLI-based remote upgrades, HTTPS (443/tcp) connectivity is required to the ESXi hosts as well as vCenter for executing commands in the VM's guest operating system via the VMware Guest Operations API. This connectivity is not permitted by default, such as in VMware Cloud on AWS, but can be configured. This tool does not attempt to install or import the required PowerCLI modules, nor does it attempt to establish a PowerCLI session with vCenter. For VMware PowerCLI installation instructions, please see: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/VMware.PowerCLI/. Once installed, run `Import-Module -Name 'VMware.VimAutomation.Core'` to import the subset of modules required. To learn more about how to establish a PowerCLI session, run `Get-Help -Name 'Connect-VIServer' -Detailed`, which includes a few examples. All target VMs must be powered on, and VMware Tools must be installed and running in the guest operating system of each Windows VM. The supplied credentials will be used on each VM to access the guest operating system, and must have administrative privileges. Because feature: https://powercli.ideas.aha.io/ideas/PCLI-I-101 has neither been accepted nor released by the PowerCLI team, Windows User Account Control (UAC) must be disabled in each guest operating system as well. Multiple VMs can be specified in the same command for batch upgrades via an array of VM IDs or names, as well as wildcard globbing of VM names; however, the SQL Server instance on each VM is upgraded iteratively, not concurrently. Please plan accordingly.