Distilling Microsoft's DSC Update (Jan 2018)

This past Friday, Microsoft posted a DSC Update that’s worth your attention - and some commentary.

PowerShell Summit Registration Status

A quick update - all numbers as of 23-January-2018, 12:23pm Pacific time.
91 seats remaining. We are on track to sell out in approximately 45 days. Unlike previous years where we’ve scrounged some spare seats at the last minute, **please don’t expect that this year, **as I think I’ve gotten better at math and have not been rounding as much.
Hotel situation:

• Marriott, we have 6 rooms left. This is our “official” hotel, with the largest number of Summiteers on site.
• Courtyard, we have 9 rooms left. This is a quick walk to the Meydenbauer, with about half as many Summiteers as the Marriott.
• Hotel 116, we have 34 rooms left. This also has about half as many Summiteers as the Marriott, and is our lowest price point hotel. This is still a quick walk to the Meydenbauer.

After the rooms above are exhausted, you’re on to “rack rate,” which, sadly, can be ridonkulous as it’s a popular time of year to be in Bellevue and they’ve gotten used to our crowd coming in. We do ask that you choose one of the above hotels if humanly possible so that we’re not stuck paying for this reserved space regardless. If we have to do so, prices for Summit will assuredly rise in 2019.
Can’t make it? We’re often asked about session recordings. We’re not prepared to commit to anything for 2018, although we’re working hard with a partner to try and make something happen. There’s no need whatsoever to “+1” this; we’re well aware that everyone asks for recordings (despite fairly low actual view numbers for them), and we’re working on it. Last year’s attempt was massively disruptful and unsuccessful, so we can’t have that again.
That’s it! Hit us up on Twitter @PSHSummit if you have questions!

Can We Talk About PowerShell Core 6.0?

Microsoft recently announced the General Availability (that is, a non-beta release) of PowerShell Core 6.0. A companion document detailing breaking changes, along with some of the language in the announcement, has led to more than a few inquiries in my mailbox. Most take the tone of, “have I been wasting my time learning PowerShell?!?!?” because, at first glance, PowerShell Core looks deeply less functional than its predecessor. Let me tell you what I think.

PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2018 Scholarship Recipient

Congratulations to Andrew Pla, winner of our PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2018 scholarship. Andrew submitted a stellar application to our review panel, and perfectly fit our profile for someone who’s just peeking out of the “beginner” realm, and who’s demonstrably used PowerShell to help bootstrap their IT career. If you’re attending Summit, be sure to keep an eye out for Andrew and say hi!

The Future of PowerShell's Desired State Configuration

Microsoft recently published a “Future of DSC” post that I thought deserved some independent commentary.

About Us

PowerShell.org is an activity of The DevOps Collective, Inc., a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. We have no legal owners; by definition, we are owned by the US public. As a charity, it is a violation of US law for any individual or entity to gain a financial benefit (e.g., a profit) from the organization. Thus, we do not have shareholders or other owners.

Our Mission

We have two broad goals within the PowerShell and DevOps community:

PowerShell Team Day at IT Transformation Event

At the upcoming “IT Transformation” event in Orlando this month (still time left to register!), members of the PowerShell team will be leading a full-day workshop that’s pretty much a don’t-miss (and no, it isn’t being recorded). Here’s the schedule:

  Time



  Speaker



  Title





  09:00am-10:00am



  Jeffrey Snover



  Observations on Modern IT Practices and Organization Culture





  10:00am-10:15am



  break





  10:15am-12:00pm



  Michael Greene



  The Release Pipeline Model





  12:00pm-01:00pm



  lunch





  01:00pm-02:45pm



  Michael Greene



  Instructor Led Hands-On Lab: Constructing a pipeline for PowerShell Modules using Visual Studio Team Services.





  03:00pm-04:00pm



  Timothy Warner



  Introduction to Azure Automation DSC





  04:00pm-05:00pm



  Jeffrey Snover



  Closing thoughts and AMA

Personally, I’m super-excited. I’ll be presenting a full-day workshop myself (the day before), along with a couple of breakout sessions and a keynote with Jeffrey Snover.
Hope to see you there!

Announcing the PowerShell Saturday Booster Program

We’re pleased to announce general availability of our PowerShell Saturday Booster Program, as announced at PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2017. The goal of this program is to help enthusiasts build sustainable one-day, small-format technical events worldwide. We can provide organizing advice and assistance, help managing finances, and so on.
Full details at https://github.com/devops-collective-inc/powershell-saturday/wiki.

Serve on the Board of PowerShell.org!

The DevOps Collective (the nonprofit that owns PowerShell.org) is organized into two main governing bodies. Our Directors - myself, Christopher Gannon, Jason Helmick, Jeffery Hicks, Richard Siddaway, and Will Anderson - run the organization on a day-to-day. On Board, which we’re now forming, consists of stakeholders who help advise us on directions, priorities, and so on. We want our Board to be diverse, and include representation from industry as well as community. This is a fairly convention nonprofit governance setup; you’ll find, for example, many Chambers of Commerce organized this way.
“Community” has been the bit we’ve struggled with, and so we’ve decided to simply put it to the community to help come up with an answer. We’d like two “at-large” seats, filled by community members on a rotating (annual) basis. The responsibilities are not huge: mainly, we’ll have a virtual meeting once or twice a year to cover our current activities and discuss priorities. On an ongoing basis, the Board is also a way for outside concerns to have a voice within the organization.
For our community seats, we want people who are actively engaged with the community on a daily basis. We want to know what’s happening out there with the people who actually use PowerShell, and who are participating in DevOps. We want to be aware of what’s going on in the OSS world, and where we, as an organization, might be able to assist.
So if that’s you, reach out to me. Drop an email to DonJ (and the domain is listed right in the address bar of your browser right now). If you know of someone, please reach out to them and have them send me an email. I’d like to know a bit about you, how you’re present in the community on an ongoing basis, and some ideas you have for what The DevOps Collective should be focusing its time and funding on (especially educationally, as that’s our main mission).
I look forward to hearing from you!

PowerShell Saturday Booster Program

As announced at PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2017, we’re preparing a “PowerShell Saturday Booster Program” to help launch and support local one-day events. Please visit https://github.com/devops-collective-inc/powershell-saturday/wiki to take a look at our draft materials, and use GitHub’s “Issues” feature to submit questions, suggestions for additional content, requests for clarification, and so on. We’ll continue to build this out, but want to make sure we’re doing so in a way that makes sense to the community. Thanks for your input! Our goal is to have this up and running by the end of June, 2017.