Course Length: 5 Days
Delivered: Virtually
OVERVIEW:
This course covers advanced Windows PowerShell topics, with an emphasis on building reusable tools. Students are introduced to workflow, engage in best practices, and learn a variety of script development and toolmaking techniques.
COURSE PREREQUISITES:
To gain the most out of this course, you should have:
- Experience at basic Windows administration
- Experience using Windows PowerShell to query and modify system information
- Experience using Windows PowerShell to discover commands and their usage
- Experience using WMI and/or CIM to query system information
TARGET AUDIENCE:
This course is intended for administrators in a Microsoft-centric environment who want to build reusable units of automation, automate business processes, and enable less-technical colleagues to accomplish administrative tasks.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Describe the correct patterns for building modularized tools in Windows PowerShell
- Build highly modularized functions that comply with native PowerShell patterns
- Build controller scripts that expose user interfaces and automate business processes
- Manage data in a variety of formats
- Write automated tests for tools
- Debug tools
COURSE CONTENT:
1 - Tool Design
- Tools do one thing
- Tools are flexible
- Tools look native
2 - Start with a Command
- Why start with a command?
- Discovery and experimentation
3 - Build a Basic Function and Module
- Start with a basic function
- Create a script module
- Check prerequisites
- Run the new command
4 - Adding CmdletBinding and Parameterizing
- About CmdletBinding and common parameters
- Accepting pipeline input
- Mandatory-ness
- Parameter validation
- Parmeter aliases
5 - Emitting Objects as Output
- Assembling information
- Constructing and emitting output
- Quick tests
6 - An Interlude: Changing Your Approach
- Examining a script
- Critiquing a script
- Revising the script
7 - Using Verbose, Warning, and Informational Output
- Knowing the six channels
- Adding verbose and warning output
- Doing more with verbose output
- Informational output
8 - Comment-Based Help
- Where to put your help
- Getting started
- Going further with comment-based help
- Broken help
9 - Handling Errors
- Understanding errors and exceptions
- Bad handling
- Two reasons for exception handling
- Handling exceptions in our tool
- Capturing the actual exception
- Handling exceptions for non-commands
- Going further with exception handling
- Deprecated exception handling
10 - Basic Debugging
- Two kinds of bugs
- The ultimate goal of debugging
- Developing assumptions
- Write-Debug
- Set-PSBreakpoint
- The PowerShell ISE
11 - Going Deeper with Parameters
- Parameter positions
- Validation
- Multiple parameter sets
- Value from remaining arguments
- Help messages
- Aliases
- More CmdletBinding
12 - Writing Full Help
- External help
- Using PlatyPs
- Supporting online help
- topics
- Making your help updatable
13 - Unit Testing Your Code
- Sketching out the test
- Making something to test
- Expanding the test
- Going further with Pester
14 - Extending Output Types
- Understanding types
- The Extensible Type System
- Extending an object
- Using Update-TypeData
15 - Analyzing Your Script
- Performing a basic analysis
- Analyzing the analysis
16 - Publishing Your Tools
- Begin with a manifest
- Publishing to PowerShell Gallery
- Publishing to private repositories
17 - Basic Controllers: Automation Scripts and Menus
- Building a menu
- Using UIChoice
- Writing a process controller
18 - Proxy Functions
- A proxy example
- Creating the proxy base
- Modifying the proxy
- Adding or removing parameters
19 - Working with XML Data
- Simple: CliXML
- Importing native XML
- ConvertTo-XML
- Creating native XML from scratch
20 - Working with JSON Data
- Converting to JSON
- Converting from JSON
21 - Working with SQL Server Data
- SQL Server terminology and facts
- Connecting to the server and database
- Writing a query
- Running a query
- Invoke-SqlCmd
- Thinking about tool design patterns
- Design tools that use SQL Server for data storage
22 - Final Exam
- Lab problem
- Break down the problem
- Do the design
- Test the commands
- Code the tool
