Collecting data from SQL Server using SMO is very slow - sql-server

Question

I got this Powershell script that gets information about whether SQL Server is installed on a host and gets the SQL Server version and other details.
It takes the list of hosts from a txt file and saves the information to a DataTable.
$data = New-Object ('System.Data.DataTable')
$data.Columns.Add('Host name') | Out-Null
$data.Columns.Add('Ip Address') | Out-Null
$data.Columns.Add('SQL Server Product Name') | Out-Null
$data.Columns.Add('SQL Server Edition') | Out-Null
$data.Columns.Add('SQL Server Version') | Out-Null
$data.Columns.Add('SQL Server Type') | Out-Null
$data.Columns.Add('SQL Server Status') | Out-Null
Get-Content .\servers.txt | ForEach {
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.SqlServer.SMO') | out-null
$row = $data.NewRow()
$row['Host name'] = $_
try {
$row['Ip Address'] = [Net.Dns]::GetHostEntry($_).AddressList.IpAddressToString
}
catch [System.Net.Sockets.SocketException] {
$row['Ip Address'] = 'Offline'
}
If ($row['Ip Address'] -eq 'Offline') {
$row['SQL Server Product Name'] = 'N/A'
$row['SQL Server Edition'] = 'N/A'
$row['SQL Server Version'] = 'N/A'
$row['SQL Server Type'] = 'N/A'
$row['SQL Server Status'] = 'N/A'
}
else {
$smo = New-Object ('Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server') $_
$row['SQL Server Product Name'] = $smo.Product + ' ' + $smo.ProductLevel
$row['SQL Server Edition'] = $smo.Edition
$row['SQL Server Version'] = $smo.VersionString
$row['SQL Server Type'] = $smo.ServerType
$row['SQL Server Status'] = $smo.Status
}
$smo.ConnectionContext.Disconnect()
$data.Rows.Add($row)
}
$data | Format-Table -AutoSize
The problem with this script is that it takes a long time to run (more than an hour with a list of 113 servers).
Is there some way to speed up the process?

Answer 1

You could run your script asynchronously using background jobs ( you will have to use 3 cmdlets : start-job, get-job and receive-job).
Quoted from About_remote_jobs
START A REMOTE JOB THAT RETURNS THE RESULTS TO THE LOCAL COMPUTER (ASJOB)
To start a background job on a remote computer that returns the command
results to the local computer, use the AsJob parameter of a cmdlet such
as the Invoke-Command cmdlet.
When you use the AsJob parameter, the job object is actually created on
the local computer even though the job runs on the remote computer. When
the job is completed, the results are returned to the local computer.
You can use the cmdlets that contain the Job noun (the Job cmdlets) to
manage any job created by any cmdlet. Many of the cmdlets that have
AsJob parameters do not use Windows PowerShell remoting, so
you can use them even on computers that are not configured for
remoting and that do not meet the requirements for remoting.