Database migrations made easy

15 Mar, 2026

Easy-Migration - simple SQL Server migrations with PowerShell, I’ve had this script sitting in my toolbox for quite a while, and now it’s finally time to share it. Why didn’t I do it earlier? Probably because I didn’t have a good name for it.

In short, it executes database migration scripts in a defined order and keeps track of what has already been executed. For full documentation, check out the GitHub repository.

Let’s take a quick look.

If you already have SQL Server and SSMS installed and running, you can skip the first two steps.

Download and install SSMS and Docker

Create a new SQL Server 2025 container using this docker-compose.yml file:

 1services:
 2mssql:
 3	image: mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2025-latest
 4	container_name: mssql-dev
 5
 6	environment:
 7	ACCEPT_EULA: "Y"
 8	MSSQL_PID: "Developer"
 9	SA_PASSWORD: "P1s-Unsee-Me"
10
11	ports:
12	- "1433:1433"
13
14	mem_limit: 2g

If the SqlServer module is not installed, install it from an elevated PowerShell prompt:
```
1Install-Module SqlServer
```
Clone the easy-migration repository from my GitHub
Using SSMS, run the schema.sql script in the context of the tempdb database
Take a quick look to see how scripts are organized by phase in the migration.json file

Examples for PowerShell 7.0+

To run the examples, open a PowerShell prompt in the example directory

Dry Run mode

 1. (Join-Path $PSScriptRoot '..' 'functions-ps7.0.ps1')
 2
 3Invoke-EasyMigration `
 4	-ConnStr 'Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=tempdb;Connection Timeout=5;Encrypt=False;
 5		User Id=sa;Password=P1s-Unsee-Me;Application Name=easy-migration;' `
 6	-BasePath $PSScriptRoot `
 7	-Phase 'phase01' `
 8	-ForceScripts 'job007\000-kill-all-user-processes.sql' `
 9	-Verbose `
10	-WhatIf

Output

What if: Performing the operation "Invoke-EasyMigration" on target "DataSource: (local), InitialCatalog: tempdb, Phase: phase01".
VERBOSE: Dry run
VERBOSE: Running migration script: 000-fix-this.sql
VERBOSE: Migration completed
VERBOSE: Running migration script: 001-fix-that.sql
VERBOSE: Migration completed
VERBOSE: Forcing migration script: job007\000-kill-all-user-processes.sql
VERBOSE: Running migration script: job007\000-kill-all-user-processes.sql
VERBOSE: Migration completed
VERBOSE: Easy as that!

Execute mode

1. (Join-Path $PSScriptRoot '..' 'functions-ps7.0.ps1')
2
3Invoke-EasyMigration `
4	-ConnStr 'Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=tempdb;Connection Timeout=5;Encrypt=False;
5		User Id=sa;Password=P1s-Unsee-Me;Application Name=easy-migration;' `
6	-BasePath $PSScriptRoot `
7	-Phase 'phase01' `
8	-ForceScripts 'job007\000-kill-all-user-processes.sql' `
9	-Verbose

Output

VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Invoke-EasyMigration" on target "DataSource: (local), InitialCatalog: tempdb, Phase: phase01".
VERBOSE: Running migration script: 000-fix-this.sql
VERBOSE: I'm
VERBOSE: Going
VERBOSE: To
VERBOSE: Fix
VERBOSE: This
VERBOSE: Migration completed
VERBOSE: Running migration script: 001-fix-that.sql
VERBOSE: I'm going to fix that
VERBOSE: Migration completed
VERBOSE: Forcing migration script: job007\000-kill-all-user-processes.sql
VERBOSE: Running migration script: job007\000-kill-all-user-processes.sql
VERBOSE: Just kidding
VERBOSE: Migration completed
VERBOSE: Easy as that!

Hopefully it was easy to read and will be easy to use.

Let me know what you think in the comments below the LinkedIn post.

See you later!

#Powershell