Bringing Home The Bacon With PowerShell - Why PowerShell Matters to IT Pros. This talk looked at the basics of PowerShell, and what it contains and examines why it is important to IT Pros. There was also a short demo.

1. Bringing Home The Bacon
An Introduction to Windows PowerShell
Thomas Lee
Partner, PS Partnership

2. • Bacon and PowerShell
• What IS PowerShell?
• What are Cmdlets, Objects and The Pipeline?
• PowerShell in Windows
• PowerShell in Windows Applications
• Why PowerShell Matters to YOU
• Questions

3. • PowerShell is the future of Windows administration
• PowerShell makes your life easier
• PowerShell magnifies your effort
• With PowerShell you have more time to enjoy and
consume bacon
• Let me show you how and why!

4. • Microsoft’s Task Automation Platform for IT Pros
• It contains
– Shell – think Unix like in terms of usefulness
– Scripting Language – with the power of Perl or Ruby
– Extensible – bring on the community
• Based on .NET – Microsoft focused

5. Cmdlets Objects Pipeline

6. • A unit of functionality
• Implemented as a .NET Class
– Get some with PowerShell/Windows
– Buy some – eg /n Software’s NetCmdlets
– Find some – leverage the community efforts
– Build your own – use C# and VS

7. • Cmdlets named with a Verb-Noun syntax
– Verbs are standard to aid discovery
• Cmdlets can have aliases
– Built in or add your own
– Aliases do NOT include parameter aliasing 
• Cmdlets come from PowerShell, Windows, apps

8. • Cmdlets take parameters
• All parameters have parameter names
– Begin with a ‘-’
• Some parameter names can be omitted
• Tab completion is your friend!
• Cmdlets are discoverable – Get-Help, Get-Command

9. • Cmdlets/Functions packaged into modules
• Modules can be dynamically loaded
• You can develop your own modules

10. • A computer abstraction of a real life thing
– A process
– A server
– An AD User
• In PowerShell everything is an object

11. • Objects have occurrences you manage
– The processes running on a computer
– The users in an OU
– The files in a folder
• Objects dramatically simplifies scripting

12. • PowerShell supports:
– .NET objects
– COM objects
– WMI objects
– Custom Objects
• Syntax and usage vary – similar, yet different

13. • Cmdlets produce and consume objects
– E.g. Get-Process produces objects of the type
System.Diagnostics.Process
• Objects are discoverable
– Get-Member tells you the what an object contains
• Refer to MSDN documentation for more detail

14. • The pipeline connects cmdlets
– One cmdlet outputs objects
– Next cmdlet uses them as input
• Pipeline is not a new concept
– Came From Unix/Linux
– PowerShell Pipes objects not text

15. • Simple to use – far easier to compose
• Powerful in operation - PowerShell (and .NET)
do the heavy lifting
• Improves integration of functionality stacks
– OS/Application/PowerShell base/Community
efforts/etc

16. • A key concept in PowerShell
• What you know helps you learn more
• PowerShell built to be discoverable

17. • Cmdlets
• Pipeline
• Objects

18. • You never walk alone => there is a HUGE PowerShell
ecosystem
– Spiceheads
– Product teams
– Vendors
• Various ways to engage with the community
– Spiceworks PowerShell Group
– Blogs
– Twitter

19. • PowerShell has a language
• This is used to create scripts, script cmdlets, etc.
• Syntax similar to C#, et al
• Language contains features from Unix/Linux
and a bunch of others
• You need to know the language to write scripts

20. • A richer environment
• Does colour coding of syntax
• Good editing features
• Extensible

21. • Core modules come with Windows
• Additional modules come with windows
features
• More module come with Windows apps
• Even more modules come from the community

22. • V3 Built into Win8, Server 2012
• V4 Built into Win 8.1, Server 2012 R2
• V5 in beta

23. • Because it’s everywhere!
• It’s faster for repetitive tasks
• It’s repeatable and auditable
• Less prone to error

24. • Books/blogs/forums
• Microsoft and other Training Courses
• Cheap plug – come on my weekend
PowerShell PowerCamps – next one is in
October
• Get your company to sponsor a class

25. • First, remove cmd.exe from your system
– Use PowerShell everywhere
• Use PowerShell for as much as you can
– Ask questions on Spiceworks
• Master PowerShell
– And bring home the bacon

26. • If you are an IT Pro in the Windows space you
need to either
– Learn PowerShell
– Learn how to smile when you say ‘would you like
fries with that’