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PowerShell for Admins
• Will Anderson
PowerShell for Admins

Using Azure Desired State Configuration – Part IV

So we’ve talked about Azure Automation DSC and the extensive reporting we can get from it. With the pricing as it is, it would be hard to argue as to why you would want to use anything else. But I’m a completionist, and there may be some edge cases that might come up where you wouldn’t be able to use the pull method for configurations. So let’s talk about how you can use Azure DSC to push a configuration to a virtual machine.

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• Will Anderson
PowerShell for Admins

Using Azure Desired State Configuration – Part III

Last week we talked about modifying and uploading our configurations to Azure Automation DSC. We were able to import credentials from Azure’s Automation Account Credential store, and then compile the .mof files in the automation account for deployment. This week, we’ll be looking at how we apply those configurations to existing systems via PowerShell. Then we’ll take a look at some of the reporting available via Azure Automation DSC and send those reports over to Operations Management Suite for dashboarding.

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• Will Anderson
PowerShell for Admins

Using Azure Desired State Configuration – Part II

Today we’re going to be talking about adding configurations to your Azure Automation Account. In this article, we’ll be discussing special considerations that we need to take into account when uploading our configurations. Then we’ll talk about compiling the configurations into Managed Object Format (.mof) files, which we’ll be able to use to assign to our systems. Things to Consider When building configurations for Azure DSC (or anything where we are pulling pre-created .

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• Will Anderson
PowerShell for Admins

Using Azure Desired State Configuration – Part I

I’ve been wanting to do this series for a while, and with some of the recent changes in Azure Automation DSC, I feel like we can now do a truly complete series. So let’s get started! Compliance is hard as it is. And as companies start moving more workloads into the cloud, they struggle with compliance even more so. Many organizations are moving to Infrastructure-as-a-Service for a multitude of reasons (both good and bad).

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• Will Anderson
PowerShell for Admins

Using PowerShell, Azure Automation, and OMS – Part III

It’s been a long road, but we’re almost there! A couple of weeks ago we looked at how we can create an Azure Automation Account and add our own custom modules to the solution to be used in Azure Automation. Last week, we took a deeper dive into configuring a runbook to take in webhook data from an alert using Microsoft’s Operations Management Suite. Then we looked into the data itself to see how we can leverage it against our runbook to fix problems for us on the fly.

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• Will Anderson
PowerShell for Admins

Using PowerShell, Azure Automation, and OMS – Part II

So last time we learned how to upload our custom modules into Azure Automation so we can start using them in Azure Automation Runbooks. This week we’re going to take a look at configuring a runbook to see what kind of data we can ingest from OMS Webhook data, and how we can leverage that data to pass into our functions. Creating the Runbook Script So first off, let’s talk about basic runbooks and running them against objects in Azure.

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• Will Anderson
PowerShell for Admins

Using PowerShell, Azure Automation, and OMS – Part I

Microsoft’s Operations Management Suite provides some exceptional tools for monitoring and maintaining your environments in both the cloud and in your datacenter. One of it’s best features, however, is its ability to leverage the tools that you’ve already developed to perform tasks and remediate issues using PowerShell, Azure Automation Runbooks, and OMS Alert triggers. In this series, we’ll be discussing how you can configure these tools to take care of problems in your own environment.

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• Don Jones
PowerShell for Admins

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.

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• Missy Januszko
PowerShell for Admins

PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit Recap

Now that I’m recovered from the 2017 PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit, I just wanted to take a moment and talk about my experiences at the conference. It was my first time attending this conference and it was also my first time speaking. Both “firsts” contributed to a range of emotions throughout the long and exhausting week. I came in to Seattle late Friday night and expected to go straight to the hotel and to bed.

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