Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 : Queries (part 3) - Executing Queries

Combining Attributes

The Joins tab of the Query Statement Properties dialog box, shown in Figure 11, displays the links made between the attribute classes. This linking is done for the most part automatically by SMS as you select attributes from different attribute classes. Sometimes, however, because of the nature of the query, you might need to create joins between different attribute classes manually.

To create your own joins to different attribute classes, follow these steps:

Viewing the Query Language

Figure 13 shows our sample query using WQL. You can display the WQL version of any query by clicking Show Query Language in the General, Criteria, or Join tab of the Query Statement Properties dialog box. As you can see, writing an SMS 2003 query using WQL is not trivial.

Prompted Queries

The query we just created will satisfy our immediate quest for information from the SMS database. However, it’s static in the sense that it will always check the database for the same information—that is, all computers running Windows 2000 Server that have at least 2 GB of free disk space.

A more useful query would be one that prompts us for value information as the query is being evaluated. For example, instead of hard-coding the value 2000, it might be more useful to have the query prompt us for the Size value. This way, we can use the query repeatedly to find computers with different amounts of free space for different packages and purposes.

To change our query to a prompted query, we need to open it and modify it. You can modify any query by right-clicking it in the SMS Administrator Console and choosing Properties from the context menu to display the Query Properties dialog box. Click Edit Query Statement to return to the Query Statement Properties dialog box, select the Criteria tab, and then double-click the element you want to modify to display the Criterion Properties dialog box. In the example shown in Figure 14, we’re modifying the Size value. The criterion type has been changed from Simple Value to Prompted Value.

Compare this figure with Figure 16-9, and you’ll see that the Value field has changed to indicate a prompted value. When this query is executed, it will first ask us to provide the value for Logical Disk-Free Space (MBytes).

3. Executing Queries

Now that we’ve seen how to create a query, it’s time to explore how to run a query. All SMS queries are run through the SMS Administrator Console. The results of the queries will also be displayed in the SMS Administrator Console.

To execute our sample query, follow these steps:

1.	In the SMS Administrator Console, navigate to the Queries folder.
2.	Right-click the query you want to run and choose Run Query from the context menu.
3.	If the query contains any prompts, the Input Query Value dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 15. Enter the appropriate value and click OK. Figure 15. The Input Query Value dialog box.
4.	You can view the results of the query in the result pane of the SMS Administrator Console interface, shown in Figure 16. You’ll need to scroll to the right to see all the result fields you chose to display. Figure 16. The query results.

As with other SMS-managed objects, such as collections, packages, and advertisements, only users who have access to the database objects will be able to run the query. The user must have rights to execute the SMS Administrator Console, rights to access the Queries folder, and rights to access data in the SMS database. This permission is assigned by applying object security through the SMS Administrator Console or sometimes through the WMI itself.