Why learn Powershell?

PowerShell is a Microsoft technology that runs on Windows and is both a command prompt and a scripting language. As I write this, it's almost 10 years old - it formally first appeared integrated as part of the operating system in Windows Server 2008. It replaces the Windows NT cmd.exe and can be installed as far as Windows XP.

Why learn Powershell?

• If you run Windows systems, this is now your shell and gateway into automation
• If you run VMware, PowerCLI is based on Powershell and is the current best way to script and automate
• Microsoft has opened their eyes that the world runs a lot of Linux. Powershell DSC supports administering Linux and has announced it will natively support SSH , and put its money where its mouth is by donating to the OpenBSD project, by itself and also as part of the Core Infrastructure Initiative.

So, while there are many ways of doing things, this does not seem to be a fad that will go away soon. In the worst case, your Windows admin skills get a boost, and in the best case, you can manage several technologies with the same base behavior. Thus, I will now make more of an effort to learn PowerShell properly, primarily for VMware scripting, but paying attention to MS and *nix applications as well.

I leave you with some good links:

Main site

https://msdn.microsoft.com/powershell

Learning Powershell

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd742419.aspx

Official PowerShell blog

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/

Hey Scripting Guy! Blog (long running Microsoft scripting blog)

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/heyscriptingguy/