PowerShell: Validating Azure Traffic Manager Endpoints
As some of you may already be aware, the Microsoft Azure cloud platform provides a service called Traffic Manager. Traffic Manager is a DNS-based load balancing service, and helps to ensure application high availability, by offering three profiles types (also known as “load balancing methods”): Performance – points DNS clients to the lowest-latency cloud resource…
PowerShell: Add Unique IDs to Your Objects
If you’re developing interactive PowerShell scripts, that frequently prompt for user input, it is often desirable to uniquely identify objects. Enabling the end user to select the object that they wish to operate on, in a simple fashion, reduces the amount of end user effort required to operate the script. For example, if you are…
Azure PowerShell :: Error Creating New Virtual Machine
Today, I was trying to create a new Standard_DS1 size virtual machine from the Azure PowerShell module, version 0.8.13. The typical process for building a virtual machine in Azure, using PowerShell, looks like the following: Create a new Azure virtual machine configuration using New-AzureVMConfig Add provisioning details (username, password for the VM) using Add-AzureProvisioningConfig (optional)…
Secunia Webinar Follow-up
Thanks to everyone who attended my recent webcast with Secunia’s “We Speak Geek” series! The topic of discussion was deploying a lab for System Center Configuration Manager in Microsoft Azure, and automating the majority of the process in PowerShell. Want to deploy a #ConfigMgr lab in #Microsoft #Azure using #PowerShell? @Secunia webcast starts in 1…
Clean up unused Azure VHD Disks
Introduction The Microsoft Azure platform maintains a list of VHD blobs that have been registered as “disks” in your Azure subscription. You can view a list of registered “disks” by opening the Azure Portal, going to the Virtual Machines node, and selecting the Disks link. Each Azure disk has a property called AttachedTo that indicates…
Implementing a .NET Class in PowerShell v5
Preface
To kick off this blog post, I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve just started working with a start-up company called Opsgility as Director of Training and Product Development. We are focused on the development and delivery of training content around Microsoft enterprise solutions, with a special focus on the Microsoft Azure public cloud platform.
Introduction
You might have heard that PowerShell version 5.0 has introduced support for building .NET classes. Indeed, this is a powerful, new capability that has not previously existed in native PowerShell syntax. Before the new class-building syntax existed, if you wanted to build custom objects in PowerShell, you generally would either: 1) use the [PSCustomObject] type, or 2) build a .NET class in C#, and use the Add-Type command to import it into the PowerShell session.
Drinking beer with #PowerShell v5 classes. #itpro #devops #Microsoft pic.twitter.com/DwlfIrNF8b— Trevor Sullivan (@pcgeek86) October 25, 2014
PowerShell 5.0: Debugging Background Jobs
By now, you’ve probably already heard about the Microsoft Windows PowerShell 5.0 September 2014 Preview. If you haven’t already, you really need to download it and get familiar with all of the new features that are coming out with it. PowerShell 5.0 is also included in the Windows 10 Technical Preview, so you can build…
PowerShell: Build Windows 10 Server Technical Preview VM in Azure
You’ve probably heard about Windows 10 and the Windows Server Technical Preview, right? You can download the Windows 10 Client operating system from https://insider.windows.com, and you can download the Windows Server Technical Preview from your MSDN account, if you have one. A lot of people have stated that the download of the ISO images is taking hours on their slower Internet connections, so what if I told you that you could get up and running with Windows 10 Server Technical Preview, in just a matter of minutes? Does that sound like a good thing to you?
Build a #Windows10 Server Technical Preview #Azure VM from the image gallery. #cloud #Microsoft #itpro #PowerShell pic.twitter.com/1HX8d9Q6WG— Trevor Sullivan (@pcgeek86) October 2, 2014
Dog Food Conference 2014 Session Materials (DSC, Azure, PowerShell)
Trevor Sullivan presenting at Dog Food Conference 2014 in Columbus, Ohio on September 30th, 2014. Photo taken by Keith Mayer (Microsoft).
Some of you may have heard my present at Dog Food Conference in September 2014. I’d like to first say thank you to the organizers of Dog Food Conference, for having me out to speak. I’d especially like to thank Ryan Dennis from Blue Chip Consulting LLC, who contacted me on Twitter and invited me to submit sessions for the conference. You can follow Ryan on Twitter at @SharePointRyan, or visit his website at SharePointRyan.com.
At Dog Food Conference, I presented two different sessions.
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Fix for Service Unavailable in PowerShell DSC Pull Server
Introduction
I recently tried to setup a Microsoft Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) Pull Server, and was receiving an error from IIS. I used the xDscWebService DSC Resource, from the xPSDesiredStateConfiguration PowerShell module, to configure the DSC Pull Server. When I tried to browse to the IIS Web Service for the Pull Server, I was receiving a HTTP 503: Service Unavailable message from Internet Explorer. I believe it is important to note that the Microsoft Windows Azure Pack (WAP) is also installed on the same server where I am trying to deploy the DSC Pull Server.