6 Reasons why you need to learn PowerShell
PowerShell is not a new technology anymore in fact it’s over a decade old and it’s a bit awkward that some System Administrators are still yet to take advantage or harness its potential in their day to day task. The Founder of PowerShell Jeffery Snover published Monad manifesto late 2002 which was tagged the next generation platform for administrative automation. That Monad Manifesto is what grew into what PowerShell is today.
PowerShell is a dynamic scripting, case-insensitive tool based on .NET framework. It is an interactive object-oriented command environment with scripting language features that utilizes small programs called cmdlets (e.g. Get-Help, Get-Process) to simplify configuration, administration, and management of heterogeneous environments in both standalone and networked topologies by utilizing standards-based remoting protocols. Below are some of the few reasons why system administrators should brace themselves up with PowerShell:
1. PowerShell Saves Time
PowerShell saving time is a no brainer at all. GUI is only preferably if you have just a single operation to perform. However, if you intend to change many things or perform bulk operation, PowerShell will save you a lot of time. Imagine having to create several active directory accounts or migrating mailboxes to exchange server using the GUI, it’s obviously going to take a lot of time clicking through the interface and boring because you will be doing the same task over and over again.
2. Ensure Consistency:
PowerShell is less error prone. A Scripted solution will run the same script every time it’s been run without having to worry about typos. Parameters such as WhatIf and Confirm will allow you to determine the effect of the script you are about to run in your environment before running it.
3. Makes Life Easy For Microsoft System Admins
There are other Microsoft languages such as VBScript, Bash or general purpose languages such as Python and Perl used for automation. But working on the Microsoft side of the fence (Active directory, Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint e.t.c) and surrounding ecosystems then PowerShell is a nice to have knowledge if not a must have to work efficiently and consistently.
4. Documentation:
PowerShell Scripts in its self is self-documenting. If you have a manager that requires you to document your work (Most IT Pros hate Documenting. Argh!!), a well written script can generally serve as a helpful base level of documentation that might not exist for a manual task because the script contains all the actions carried out.
5. Not everything can be done using the GUI:
Many of the GUI interfaces that Microsoft has been designing for its various products are actually front end interfaces to PowerShell. For example Exchange Management console is Exchange Management Shell frontend which means when you perform a task via GUI, the GUI produces a series of PowerShell commands which it executes behind the scene. Task such as restoring exchange data from backup, advance message tracking or even some part of server Core management can only be achieved using PowerShell.
6. Flexibility
The beauty of PowerShell is in its flexibility. Assuming you started out learning PowerShell to manage active directory, you don’t have to relearn it to manage for instance exchange, SharePoint, DNS, Hyper-V or any Microsoft technology driven by PowerShell. When you learn Windows PowerShell conventions, you can sense how it will work on other products because the syntax and idea is pretty much the same.
The pivotal importance of PowerShell cannot be overemphasized. If you are aiming to optimise the use of your time by doing as much as possible via scripting, Powershell is the right response to your need. PowerShell does not demand that you run jobs one after the other; It has the means to launch actions whenever you wish and to obtain the results when you want them to save time.
Writer: Hakeem Abdulsalam- MCSA, MCSE, CTT+,MCT, CCNA
Techspecialist Consulting Limited