One key use case for SQL Clone is to have the latest possible copy of a production database available for quick mounting in another environment.

For a backup file matching a database name, this script obtains the latest then uses it to create a SQL Clone image.

# Script to create a new SQL Clone data image from a backup file
 
$SQLCloneServer= 'http://sql-clone.example.com:14145'
$TemporaryServerMachine = 'wks-dev1' # Specifies which instance of SQL Server will be temporarily used to restore the backup while creating an image
$TemporaryServerInstance = 'sql2014' # No additional disk space is required for this temporary restore
 
Connect-SqlClone -ServerUrl $SQLCloneServer
 
$TemporaryServer = Get-SqlCloneSqlServerInstance -MachineName $TemporaryServerMachine -InstanceName $TemporaryServerInstance # You can omit the instance parameter if there is only one instance
 
$SourceDatabase = 'Forex'
$BackupFolder = '\\File1.example.com\Backups\SQL\MSSQL\Backup'
 
if (!(Test-Path ($BackupFolder)))
  {
    write-host 'Backup folder not found. Exiting.'
    break
  }
 
# Get the latest backup file for our database (striped backups would be more complex)
$BackupFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path $BackupFolder  |
    Where-Object -FilterScript { $_.Name.Substring(0,$SourceDatabase.Length) -eq $SourceDatabase}   # My backup files always start with the database name
 
# Now we have a filtered list, sort to get latest
$BackupFile = $BackupFiles | 
    Sort-Object -Property LastWriteTime  |    
    Select-Object -Last 1 # I only want the most recent file for this database to be used
 
$BackupFileName = $BackupFile.FullName
 
#Start a timer
$elapsed = [System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch]::StartNew()
 
"Started at {0}, creating data image for database ""{1}"" from backup file ""{2}""" -f $(get-date) , $SourceDatabase , $BackupFileName
 
$DataImageName = $SourceDatabase + "_" + (Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd") # Prepare a name for the data image, with a timestamp
$ImageDestination = Get-SqlCloneImageLocation -Path '\\filestore.example.com\SQLClone\SQL Clone Images' # Point to the file share we want to use to store the image
 
$NewImage = New-SqlCloneImage -Name $DataImageName -SqlServerInstance $TemporaryServer -BackupFileName $BackupFileName -Destination $ImageDestination | Wait-SqlCloneOperation # Create the data image and wait for completion
 
"Total Elapsed Time: {0}" -f $($elapsed.Elapsed.ToString())