PowerShell isn't a conventional language, though it draws inspiration widely. Many people learn it, and use it, best by collecting snippets, or one-liners, and adapting them for use. Michael Sorens provides the second in a series of collections of general-purpose one-liners to cover most of what you'll need to get useful scripting done.… Read more
Just because it is possible to do many configuration jobs 'click by bleeding click', doesn't mean that it is a good idea. It is better to step back, plan, and use the advanced resources provided for managing large network. Printer configuration is the perfect illustration of this, and Joseph demonstrates how the use of Group Policy, PowerShell, and Print Management can turn a time-consuming chore into a pleasure.… Read more
PowerShell is designed to be used by busy IT professionals who want to get things done, and don't necessarily enjoy programming. PowerShell tackles this paradox by providing its own help and command-line intellisense. We aim to make it a bit easier still by providing a series of collections of general-purpose one-liners to cover most of what you'll need to get useful scripting done.… Read more
To master PowerShell, you must know how to use XML. XML is an essential data interchange format because it remains the most reliable way of ensuring that an object's data is preserved. Fortunately, PowerShell makes it all easy, as Michael Sorens demonstrates.… Read more
One of the frustrations of anyone beginning with PowerShell is the simple task of getting data in and out. To help out with this, Michael Sorens begins a series that shows you how to import data from most of the common file formats and sources. He also shows how to export data in a range of formats.… Read more
For the busy administrator of a windows domain, any regular task or housekeeping process should be automated, and the Cmdlets that are now provided with Active Directory have improved to the point that there is no serious contender to PowerShell for the task. Joseph Moody shows how to do it, with examples.… Read more
A Hyper-V replica installation provides rapid disaster-recovery by asynchronously replicating a VM running at a primary site to a replica site. Know how to prepare for something to go wrong at the Primary Server/Site? In this article Nirmal Sharma presents the Replication options for a Replica Virtual Machine with a focus on Hyper-V Failover.
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If you're faced with having to deploy software to those PCs that are, say, from a particular manufacturer, are laptops with Windows 7, or almost any other criteria, you can use Group Policy if you use the option to filter via a WMI Query. Joseph Moody explains how. … Read more
PowerShell provides comment-based help for functions and scripts with Get-Help, but when you want to document modules or generate a complete indexed API in HTML format, just as you can with Sandcastle for .NET or javadoc for Java, then stronger magic is required. Michael Sorens shows you how it is done, with source code.… Read more
A Hyper-V replica installation provides a great opportunity for providing rapid disaster-recovery by asynchronously replicating a VM running at a primary site to a replica site across LAN or WAN to maintain a hot standby VM. Nirmal explains more, and shows how to set it up.… Read more
Group Policy Software Installation (GPSI) allows for a high level of control on what can be installed where on a group of computers based on the user. In this article Joseph Moody walks you through the steps to create pre-approved software lists for users to install, and upgrade and uninstall that software.… Read more
It is important to prevent computer viruses from infecting a network within an organisation; Joseph Moody walks us through the setup and management of User Account Control (UAC) and AppLocker, which together provide network administrators with a powerful defense against malicious applications. … Read more
Hyper-V has become far more sophisticated since the release V3 of Windows 2012, but it means that there are now a number of alternative ways of achieving migration and High-availability. The right method depends on your particular requirements, as Nirmal explains.… Read more
Active Directory has more uses than it is usually credited with. The 'Active Directory Users and Computers' console can even be extended with whatever PowerShell tasks you need to make routine administrative tasks easier. … Read more
A configuration of Hyper-V networking across two or more Hyper-V Hosts is the most complex type. It needs to be configured according to the business rules and communication between Virtual Machines and the Hyper-V Parent Partition is best configured with VMBUS and VSP/VSC components. Nirmal explains how best to do it… Read more
Hyper-V Networking can be configured to meet a wide range of requirements, but it isn't always obvious which choices are appropriate when configuring the virtual network, and in particular the best ways to implement Virtual Network Switches.… Read more
When the Cloud was new, it was often presented as an 'all or nothing' solution. Nowadays, the canny Systems Architect will exploit the best advantages of 'cloud' distributed computing in the right place, and use in-house services where most appropriate. So what are the issues that govern these architectural decisions?… Read more
A combination of PowerShell and HTML can provide the basis of an easily-scanned report on the basic state of a whole group of servers. Sean combined a range of routine health-checks to provide himself a useful range of information about his servers to his in-box.
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If you are using Exchange Server 2003, it is worth considering a move to Office 365 instead of Exchange 2012. If you have business reasons to do so, it is possible to use the migration tool to switch over from an 'on-premises' Exchange-hosted mail service to a cloud-based Office 365 service. Jaap walks through the steps for a relatively small corporation..… Read more
The offline address-book (OAB) of Exchange is available when the user is not connected, Since Exchange 2007, it is updated via a Web-based distribution point. But what if you need to set up several Offline address-books for a variety of sites or geographical regions, each to be distributed by a different point? How would you do that? Krishna demonstrates.… Read more
