PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2022

Breakfast in the Washington BallRoom

Add to Calendar

Welcome back to our first in-person event of the year!

Add to Calendar

OnRamp Class

Add to Calendar

State of the Shell with 

Jason Helmick

Sidney Smith

Jeffery Snover

Add to Calendar

You know PowerShell, but you have a need to learn Terraform. Where do you start? What do all these terms mean? How do you best translate your existing knowledge to a new tool? This session aims to tackle those questions and more!
Ensuring your toolbox includes a diverse set of languages, skills, and tools is incredibly important to a successful career. Over the years, Terraform has basically become synonymous with Infrastructure as Code and proven to be a terrific tool to have available. This session is going to look at how easy it is to transfer existing PowerShell knowledge to become familiar with Terraform's lingo, coding, and overall usage.

Add to Calendar

Instead of writing the code for your PowerShell modules and functions, what if you could write the code that writes your code. Or the code that writes your code that writes your code? It?s a rabbit hole that can either frustrate or give great joy.There?s many ways to approach this, what I?ll cover in this session are a number of different styles that can be used for this purpose. After that we?ll go through examples that showcase these styles.

Add to Calendar

AWS Managed Services (AMS) provisions and manages AWS infrastructure in collaboration with customers, leveraging automation, detective guardrails, monitoring, security, and incident management best practices. PowerShell plays a critical role in configuring and monitoring Windows workloads as well as remediating any issues that may arise. Orchestrated by AWS Systems Manager and AWS CloudFormation, PowerShell helps AMS operate Windows workloads securely and efficiently at significant scale - come along to find out how!

Add to Calendar

It is no secret that PowerShell is a powerful language inherent to Microsoft Windows. As such, it is used for system administration, threat hunting, or even malicious activities. With the language now being open-source, it is available on Linux distributions, making it a viable contender for defenders and malicious users alike. This talk will dive into getting started and demo using and incorporating the language on Linux platforms from firsthand blue and red team encounters, enabling you more agile and versatile when interrogating and conducting analysis.

Add to Calendar

Learning a new skill is difficult. But what helps you acquire a new skill quickly is transfer. Knowledge transfer is the amount of prior knowledge that you have that helps you to learn. In this session, you will learn how to build a command-line interface. You'll use the Azure SDK for Go to build a command-line interface that emulates PowerShell but is written in Go. Take the next step and learn to develop the tools you've learned to code with. And pick up a new language along the way.

Add to Calendar

Early on in the Azure Functions, I published an article all about the "hidden" goodies in Azure Functions Powershellhttps://justingrote.github.io/Powershell-Azure-Functions-The-Missing-Manual/
This session will be an update on that article for the latest Azure Functions v4 release. You will learn:1. How to use a devcontainer, Azurite, and VSCode to effectively run and test powershell functions2. Examples of scaling out durable functions effectively3. Advanced settings and integration functionality4. Utilizing Application Insights and Durable Functions Monitor for better telemetry about how your app is doing.5. Using Pester to test your functions both locally and end-to-end

Add to Calendar

Break

Add to Calendar

Love PowerShell remoting? Want to have greater flexibility managing across on-prem and Azure resources? Join CloudShell and OpenSSH rockstar Danny Maertens and learn about our efforts in the OpenSSH space: Win32-OpenSSH, SSH for Arc-enabled servers, and the unified Azure SSH experience.

Add to Calendar

In my former life, I consistently worked with macOS, Linux, and Windows. Having done this sort of thing before, I wondered if instead of syncing directories, dotfiles, and ensuring I?d pushed to main before swapping if I could be effective at keeping sessions in the cloud and just attach to it!
Cloud shells are online environments accessible anywhere from your browser. This talk will cover day-to-day cloud shell things like file editing, Kubernetes operations, CI/CD, bootstrapping your favorite shell when you need something other than the default! We'll also cover how to make this workflow repeatable: how to share it with your team, ways of making the setup(s) a way to get people committing to your codebase on day 1, and discuss the remote pairing. Finally, we'll discuss ways to set up your own cloud shell, what's currently possible, what's coming, and things you can accomplish in addition to the features provided by your cloud provider - or even self-hosted!

Add to Calendar

Let?s make a DSC Resource module and Azure Policy Guest Configuration Packages for Linux, and learn how you can test them! Learn how to re-use DSC Community templates and various tools such as ModuleBuilder, PSDepend, Test-Kitchen to create quality packages and test them!
Despite the promise of containers and Kubernetes, the reality means you're still managing VMs at least for some workload, but you'd prefer to do so following [the release pipeline model](https://aka.ms/TRPM)! Azure Policy Guest Configuration should become the natural tool for the PowerShell enthusiast! Based on the new version of PowerShell DSC, combined with a new cross-platform Guest Configuration agent, the service can now ensure your VMs are in the desired state, whether in Azure, on-prem, or any cloud through Azure Arc. In this session, you will learn how to create and test the DSC Resources, Configuration Script and Guest Configuration packages to manage your VMs, and how to test the behavior of your package with [Test Kitchen](https://kitchen.ci/) on Azure Linux VMs. You will discover the tools that help you get started quickly with creating PowerShell Modules with DSC Resources such as [Sampler](https://github.com/gaelcolas/sampler), [PSDepend](https://github.com/RamblingCookieMonster/PSDepend), [ModuleBuilder](https://github.com/PoshCode/ModuleBuilder/), [GitVersion](https://gitversion.net/docs/), Test-Kitchen, Kitchen-Pester and a few more!

Add to Calendar

Whether you?re giving a LIVE presentation, deploying to Prod, or watching the red X?s in your pipeline runs, The PowerShell Gallery we know and love can sometimes fail you in the most inopportune moments. Come to this talk and discover ways to appease the Demo Gods and keep your pipelines green!
We?ve all been there. Your pipelines are full of red X?s, and the PowerShell Gallery is down again. Your Mission-Critical code needs the ability to withstand outages like this, while still ensuring you are still pulling down the latest versions of modules. This talk will cover strategies for mitigating these issues, including basic Save-Module functionality, internal/private repositories, module caching (e.g. in Github Actions), and more advanced use cases like self-updating upstream/proxy repositories.

Add to Calendar

Think you can?t get StdOut from remote commands without WinRM or PsExec? Think again. Good old WMI to the rescue with a little technique that you?ll want to add to your toolbox.
In this session, you'll learn one technique to execute commands remotely on Windows systems and get the actual output back, using only WMI. We'll talk about other techniques for comparison, including WinRM, PSEexec, Scheduled Tasks, and the Win32_Process create method. If you've ever needed to run scripts or command-line tools remotely and get StdOut or other pipelines, but have been limited by firewall rules or corporate policies, join the club!

Add to Calendar

You can?t automate humans, but you can empower them to help develop and maintain your PowerShell!From technical solutions to soft skills, we?ll cover field-tested methods for increasing the adoption of PowerShell on your team.
Getting to the point of being able to create PowerShell tools is a great place to be, but better still would be to have multiple people working on those tools. All the while, it's important that what we do end up creating is still of a high standard. How can we get others to work on code and ensure that the code being contributed is of a high standard? Learn how Plaster, VS Code tasks, PSScriptAnalyzer, pair coding, and a whole lot more can be used to increase your team's collective PowerShell output. Find out what worked well for me as well as things to avoid along the way.

Add to Calendar

Breakfast in the Washington Ballroom

Add to Calendar

We?ll go heavy into the PowerShell SDK and create a PowerShell editor in 90 minutes.
In this session, we?ll look at many of the details of the PowerShell SDK and build a PowerShell editor. The editor will go over syntax highlight, command completion, runspaces, debugging, and custom hosting. This session is deeply technical and will demonstrate a lot of C#. We?ll use .NET 6.0 and PowerShell 7.2 during the talk.

Add to Calendar

Creating tools is a great way to gain a deep understanding of a problem you are trying to solve. Like any development endeavor though, it comes with its own new set of problems. In this talk we?ll walk through the problems I ran into writing tools in PowerShell and methods I used to overcome them.
Throughout the talk, we?ll explore my experience creating SQLTop: a Linux ?top?-like tool for SQL Server. We?ll go through the motivation for the tool, some of the PowerShell challenges I ran into, and how I ultimately solved those challenges.We?ll be covering a lot of different topics including: * User input * Runspaces for separating UI and data gathering code * Splatting for object output and sorting * In-line text formatting * Full-screen (almost flicker-free) refreshes * And more!While some of the topics discussed might be a bit advanced, this talk should have a little something for everyone.

Add to Calendar

Microsoft?s ?Release Pipeline Model? whitepaper describes a new era of how IT systems should be managed nowadays. DSC is just one tool in a long toolchain to control your infra through code via a CI/CD release pipeline. We present a working PoC that summarizes the learning of 4 hard years.
The documentation available around DSC quite often drives people in the wrong direction. At the very beginning, things go quite well but if the requirements are getting more complex, they realize that configuration management, monitoring, and reporting do not scale. Hashtables are not designed to store hundreds of computer configuration items, roles, location, etc. This session tells the story about a community open source project that has gone over two years to something like a blueprint for new DSC projects in pull mode. It explains how DSC works in a world described in Microsoft's Release Pipeline Model whitepaper. Not only DSC is part of the story but also Datum, Azure DevOps, JEA, and SQL reporting for DSC. If this is too much for starters, the DSC part of the project is also applicable for DSC push scenarios and does not require anything but DSC and Datum. If you are planning to introduce DSC in your environment or enhance an existing implementation, attend this session to learn about best practices learned in the field and be able to describe and realize an infrastructure release pipeline that adds trust, scalability, flexibility, and speed.

Add to Calendar

OnRamp Class

Add to Calendar

Games and PowerShell, it is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of PowerShell. In this session, Jaap will walk you through debugging with an example of a game in PowerShell.
During this interactive session, we will walk through the different methods of looking into and debugging your code. Going step-by-step, we will see not only how we can debug this game, but also PowerShell scripts, functions, and modules. After that, we will take a closer look at what is possible by attaching a debugger to a remote process and what the benefit of doing this is.

Add to Calendar

The concept of *-as-Code is truly brilliant. But what happens when your as-Code tool of choice doesn?t support some business-critical platform? With some planned JSON and smart PowerShell, we can aC the world!
Configuration management and Infrastructure as Code are all the rage, but the adoption of tooling standards (DSC, Terraform, etc) abstracts the application of those configs and leaves many of us begging to be able to apply our ?as-Code? tool of choice to other things without realizing how easy it would be to do ourselves. In this session, I want to awaken capabilities that already exist in your mind. The power to aC anything using your existing PowerShell knowledge, a descent module, and some planned out JSON.The PowerShell part is easy. If you know how to interact with an API using a supplied module, that?s it! Good work. And then JSON, does that even matter? You can build your objects in PowerShell and then ConvertTo-Json. Bam, good to go.The concepts that we?ll cover that are a bit more aC?ing specific:

• Idempotency - For each resource, we check to be sure that each config setting is set correctly, so even if the resource already exists, we?ll check each setting to ensure compliance.
• Testing - Since we?ll be storing our config and script in Git, we only want the config applied on a merge to main and we want to be able to test it on a PR. We?ll KISS and only write one script.

• A configuration
• A script to apply it
• A workflow to run it

Add to Calendar

Writing the automation is the easy part, growing adoption is hard! Let's think through the "Why Automating" and discover models, tools and practices that can help focusing on the right thing, targeting the right problem, for the right person, working in an optimized way for your context!

Add to Calendar

PowerShell users are no strangers to attributes - we use them to decorate parameters all time! But what else can we do with attributes? In this session, we?ll dive into the wonderful world of custom attributes and their many use cases, and discover how to write cleaner code!
This session is meant for toolmakers and module authors who are hoping to take advantage of custom attributes across a variety of use cases:

• Custom parameter validation
• Custom class attributes
• Code generation for things like REST APIs
• Implicit caching and other ?smart variable? features

We will examine what attributes are, how they?re defined, used, and in which contexts PowerShell natively recognizes and uses attributes, before diving into how we can use either C# or PowerShell?s class keyword to define new custom attribute types, and which constraints and limitations PowerShell imposes on their applicability.Finally, we?ll explore a concrete use case and write a script to generate a simple attribute-based wrapper module for a REST API in pure PowerShell.

Add to Calendar

Automating tasks with PowerShell is a no-brainer for IT pros, but how do you put that power into the hands of more teams safely and effectively? You could distribute scripts or build apps by hand and deal with security, auditing, varying or no scripting skill sets, and user-friendliness, but that can be unnecessarily time-consuming. In this talk, we'll show you an easier, more secure, and more flexible way to turn your scripts into web tools with the new, completely redesigned version of System Frontier.

Add to Calendar

PowerShell can automate the real world.Learn how to script your local smart devices, control your TV, manage your media, monitor your devices, and more.
During this talk, we'll discuss how to automate the real world with PowerShell. We'll walk thru controlling smart lights with PowerShell, scripting your Rokus, managing your media, and remote communication within a LAN.

Add to Calendar

Code Golf is a game designed to let you show off your code-fu by solving problems in the least number of characters. Let?s have fun twisting our knowledge of PowerShell and using it in ways it was never intended to be used.
In this session, we will golf a few problems as I share my tips and tricks for writing unimaginably shortcode. I find it surprisingly fun and almost zen-like applying my understanding of the PowerShell language to the code golf problems. Once you flesh out a solution to the problem, the puzzle really begins as you hunt for more and more characters you can eliminate, often questioning everything you think you know. This is a chance to look at and explore PowerShell in a way you have never looked at it before.

Add to Calendar

By now, many of us are using git to maintain our PowerShell scripts. Recognizing the power of having previous versions available as well as data around why parts of code were added. Take your git game to the next level to quickly iterate on an idea without worrying about your current directory state
So you?ve bought into the git hype. Now how do you take it to the next level and leverage the power of the blockchain? Come along as we dive into one of the more esoteric features of git to quickly pivot what you?re working on without losing your current work.
Have you ever been in a situation where you?re working on something and a high-priority bug comes in and you have to pivot to fix it? What do you do if you have multiple untracked changes? Do you just stash them and hope you can find them later? Maybe you commit the changes and hope to remember to edit the commit later. Perhaps you clone the repository into a new directory and start working from there? Well, fear not! You don?t have to do any of those things. With git worktree you can create a new directory for your work without pulling down the entire repository again.
What about a scenario where you?re running a long process and want to work on something else while that?s running? You can?t just start working on that same directory without possibly breaking that process. Surely you don?t want to clone another copy of the repository, that?s a sure-fire way to get you into a confusing mess of directories in different states. Again git worktree to the rescue!Come learn how to use git worktree to supercharge your development and save time without losing your wits.

Add to Calendar

Learn what you need to know to package those legacy Windows applications that you just can?t seem to get rid of or re-platform as containers and deploy them at scale in the cloud using Kubernetes! We?ll discuss key concepts like building Windows-based containers, controlling application roll-outs by using advanced Kubernetes deployment techniques, and then crossing your fingers. Then dive into performance monitoring and management for business-critical Windows-based container applications!
Learning objectives: - Building Windows Containers - Deploying Windows Containers in Kubernetes - Used Advanced Deployment techniques to ensure a successful rollout - Performance monitoring and management for Windows Containers

Add to Calendar

Team and Community Lightning Demos

Add to Calendar

Breakfast in the Washington Ballroom

Add to Calendar

In this session we will introduce Kubernetes, we?ll deep dive into each component and its responsibility in a cluster. We will also look at and demonstrate higher-level abstractions such as Services, Controllers, and Deployments and how they can be used to ensure the desired state of an application and data platform deployed in Kubernetes. Next, we?ll look at Kubernetes networking and inter-cluster communication patterns. By the end of this session, you will understand what?s needed to put your applications and data platform in production in a Kubernetes cluster
Session Objectives: Understand Kubernetes cluster architecture Understand Services, Controllers, and Deployments Designing Production-Ready Kubernetes Clusters

Add to Calendar

Not a SQL Server DBA but still have to manage SQL Server? dbatools is an ultra-powerful PowerShell that will simplify the hell out of your life. With over 500 commands, we've got you more than covered for the basic tasks you may be required to perform, including entire instance-to-instance migrations, which used to be incredibly painful.
Based on real-world experience, this session will walk you through the first things you should do when you inherit or have to build an on-prem SQL Server instance. Then, it'll walk you through the simple things you can do to keep your SQL Server healthy, no matter if your databases are 10 MB or 100 GB. Tips, tricks, and strong opinions are also included.
Join this session and see why Jeffrey Snover said "If you use SQL, someone on the team should be a dbatools pro."

Add to Calendar

We all might think we know the rules in PowerShell, but did you know you could break the game?
You'll learn some handy and unusual tricks, including * Smart aliasing * Eventful Scripting * Flexible Splatting * Extensible Commands * Manipulating Media in PowerShell * and more.

Add to Calendar

OnRamp Class

Add to Calendar

Every day, I see the power of PowerShell firsthand. This talk will focus on using PowerShell to unquarantine binaries from Antivirus platforms and in the end, enable someone to repeat the processes in their own environment and also use the custom PowerShell capability that will be shared.
During the scope of an investigation, there are times when a potentially malicious binary may have been quarantined by an antivirus solution. While the stopping of potentially malicious activity is certainly great, retrieving the binary for validation analysis is vital. Given the task, there are generally two options. You could a) have the antivirus platform that triggered the alert, unquarantine the binary but that would be risky or b) attempt to unquarantine the binary on an analyst system, with the appropriate defensive measures in place, but lacks the antivirus platform that would be doing the unquarantining. The latter option is safer but lacks the technology and ability to accomplish the intent. With the use of PowerShell and a little bit of logic, we can turn the latter option into something actionable. This talk will dive into the use of a custom PowerShell capability that enables an analyst to unquarantine items from several antivirus platforms, revealing the raw binary for analysis. The capability has assisted in several incident response investigations and walking away, you will be able to add this to your kitbag.

Add to Calendar

Make your Powershell life easier with Visual Studio Code!
We will cover many settings and extensions to get the best bang for your buck including - Code Formatting - Profile Settings - Syntax Highlighting - Error Lens - Git Lens - Task and Launch configurations and many more!
I?ve used Visual Studio Code for over half a decade now once it was clear that was where the PowerShell train was a-rollin'. Since then, I have picked up many, many tricks, contributed to the official PowerShell extension, and even written extensions of my own (Pester Tests and the PowerShell Extension Pack).
This session will be a mind-meld transfer of what I?ve learned so that you don?t have to: All the custom settings tricks, handy development techniques, and more to make your experience writing PowerShell with Visual Studio Code as productive as possible.

Add to Calendar

Create consistent modules for your organization. Learn how Stucco can give you a consistent Plaster template. It includes psake for repeatability, easy-to-use command line, and pipeline integration. Also: Automatic Pester testing, Markdown generation, publishing and so much more.
Consistency is the best teacher. Learn how to bring consistency to your companies internally built modules with the use of Plaster. 
We'll start with the high level value proposition of creating internal modules vs random scripts, and then dive into the nitty-gritty of implementing a local build all the way down to adding it to your pipeline. 
We will take advantage of @devblackops opinionated Plaster template, and transform it to fit your companies need. Learn how it's use of psake can make testing easy for your team to develop, and how easy it can be to plug into your pipeline. 
Oh yea, did I mention the free testing? Included with the module and how to easily extend it to fit your requirements. 
Ready to go live to the world? Publishing to a repo is also included.

Add to Calendar

A lot of the development for PowerShell occurs outside the engine in separate modules released to the PowerShell Gallery. This allows us to develop and release new features faster and continue to grow the extensible PowerShell ecosystem. Join us to get the latest on the development and releases of PSReadLine with Predictors, SecretManagement, Crescendo, and more!

Add to Calendar

This skill is arguably more important than any one passing tech trend that could be delivered in a breakout session. It is a timeless skill that will pay dividends for the remainder of your career.
You're applying for a new job. You really want it. There are five candidates. What is the one thing you can do that will give you a brilliant advantage over the other applicants? I have taught many technical skills over the years. But there is one skill I have not had the opportunity to teach yet??? personal brand. This skill is arguably more important than any one passing tech trend that could be delivered in a breakout session. It is a timeless skill that will pay dividends for the remainder of your career. Learn how to impact people around the world, far beyond the borders of your cube wall and your IT team. Learn how to build a calling card that will open doors for your career, provide personal satisfaction, and provide for yourself and your family for years to come. Learn how to build a personal brand from someone who has been there, done that, got the t-shirts, got the lanyards, got the clicks, got the goatee.

Add to Calendar

Imagine a heterogeneous infrastructure where all APIs and authentication methods are the same. Now pinch yourself! PowerShell gives you the tools to make this dream a reality. Using open-source PowerShell modules you can create a RESTFUL API Gateway providing secure access to all your system data.

Utilizing open-source PowerShell modules you can create a RESTful API Gateway to provide secure access to your existing PowerShell scripts and the data they produce. This RESTful Gateway will provide consistent interfaces, secure access to multiple different Enterprise Services, as well as other core applications in your infrastructure. Not having to manage multiple Authentication methods to different services within a single script can save huge amounts of time and frustration. You can now create your own client with a consistent interface to retrieve all of your critical system data. Take notes during this session to learn how to set up the RESTful API Gateway, Secure the endpoints, and fully customize them to meet your organizational needs. This is all done utilizing PowerShell.

Add to Calendar

Security is crucial in today's DevOps world, but it is often only kicking in when the data center is already burning. I?ll walk you through a massive amount of tools, easy to deploy and integrate into your existing Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions streams, to optimize security from the start
You might have seen one of my previous sessions on (Azure) DevOps or know about pipelines already. Although pipelines are awesome, they often don't have security integrated. And that's exactly what this session will cover. Sometimes described as shifting left, it means organizations should try and integrate security as early in the DevOps process as possible. This session will cover different DevOps security capabilities like the Microsoft Threat Modeling tool, integrating vulnerability code scanning of your source control across DevOps tools, how to securely store secrets in Azure KeyVault and reuse it in pipelines, and integrating security into your container images. As typical in Peter's sessions, this will be mainly whiteboarding and demos, instead of flipping PowerPoint slides.

Add to Calendar

Have you ever gotten into an argument because the statement that you made wasn't understood as you meant it? Have you ever seen a simple disagreement go rapidly off the rails, and turn into a shouting match?
Rather than quipping at one another (like UDP), there is a technique for resolving disputes or conflicts that is more akin to TCP. It is called Active Listening. In this talk, I'll show you how this technique reduces the likelihood of a shouting match by drastically slowing the escalation, and forcing each side to listen and comprehend what the other person is trying to say.

Add to Calendar

Toast notifications are _the_ way to get timely information to your users. Or yourself for that matter.
Having spent a lot of time building PowerShell tooling around these notifications, I've built up an extensive cookbook of tasty toast recipes (yes, there's more than one way to cook them!) Come learn the many different ways of utilizing toast notifications, from basic to advanced and even across Windows and Linux desktops.

Add to Calendar

Over the last 15 years, I?ve written multiple large modules, most recently to work with Octopus deploy. This isn?t a session about Octopus but about how I?ve applied that experience to create a new set of commands
Many services now use REST APIs: useful programs for users combine some intelligence about the task with the knowledge of the API - there are code generators which will convert the API specification into PowerShell code, but without that added intelligence they output thin wrappers for the API which need more code to be written - the code generators doesn't know users will want to get an object and then pipe it into other commands, or that some commands are dangerous and should prompt for confirmation. Generally a useful module will implement authentication, have a common way for commands to call the API and receive processed or partially processed results, and include formatting and type extension data for the objects returned. This is a case study session and it is designed to show how support for different objects and tasks grows from a basic "I can get information about those with this API call", to a module with dozens of functions which work together to make use of a service more efficient.

Add to Calendar

Idempotent operations are operations that can be performed multiple times with the same result. Deployment scripts, configuration management, package installation (and more) benefit hugely from this concept.
The concept isn?t exclusive to PowerShell, and we can apply this to many parts of our jobs.
In this session, you'll learn why you should write scripts and functions with an eye towards idempotence, and some helpful tips to get started. We'll cover:

• Why you should care about idempotence
• What idempotence looks like in functions and scripts
• What to bear in mind when writing idempotent operations
• Where this can be applied, and how best to do so

Add to Calendar

Have you ever wanted to use an internal Repository for your modules? Let?s show you why you would want to do that, how to get started, and what you should automate. It?s both much easier and much harder than you expected.
Setting up and publishing to an internal repository is much easier than most people expect. In this talk, I plan on covering why it's a good idea to use an internal repository to distribute modules. I will show how to publish modules to both a file share and a local NuGet instance. The demo will show the user how to manually publish the module with the idea that it should be part of a CI/CD pipeline. We will address the idea of re-hosting public modules from the PSGallery as a way to gate them into your organization. We will also show how to bootstrap other systems to use the internal repository.
And then talk about the trials and tribulations of doing this in my organization.

Add to Calendar

The world of IT moves fast, and we're expected to move fast with it.
You have a job. You have a career. You have a brand. You have social media. You have a blog. You have a community. And you have to do it all. Today. Not tomorrow. Now.
We're building our own cage filled with anxiety, stress, and burnout. All of this can lead to mental health issues.
I want to show you how working in IT affects our mental health, what you can do about it to look after yours now, and pace yourself for the future.

Add to Calendar

Breakfast in the Washington Ballroom Ballroom

Add to Calendar

PowerShell has come a long way in working with APIs, but one of the biggest leaps is to be able to automatically generate API-based modules. All you need is a little swagger (OpenAPI) with AutoRest and you?ll be able to build your own modules with a single command.
AutoRest is a tool developed by Microsoft to ingest OpenAPI (f.k.a. Swagger) definitions and output language-specific SDKs using plugins. The coolest plugin, in my estimation, is the AutoRest PowerShell plugin which allows us PowerShell folks to process an API definition file into a full-on PowerShell SDK. 
Now there are some nuances with using AutoRest to generate PowerShell modules that we'll cover: 

• Basic OpenAPI structure: Comes in handy while working through AutoRest errors 
• Authentication: Every API is different, but we'll run through a real world example 
• Custom cmdlets: Adding in helper cmdlets can be helpful for your SDK users (including yourself!) 
• Directives: The default cmdlets likely don't quite meet your standards, AutoRest PowerShell supports directives to do all kinds of customization to the module generation process. 
• Working with an autogenerated module and Git: AutoRest's PowerShell plugin has some built in features for this 

By the end of this session, if you haven't already been sold on AutoRest, we'll even take a look at some Microsoft modules that already use AutoRest for comparison: - Az modules - Microsoft.Graph modules

Add to Calendar

We want the community to know what?s happening with Azure AD and PowerShell. What better place to deliver an update? We also want to address feedback on the PS SDK for MS Graph and demonstrate investments we are making to aid transitioning to the latest module.
Microsoft Graph is the gateway to data and intelligence in Microsoft 365, Windows 10, and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security. The Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK acts as an API wrapper for the Microsoft Graph APIs, and it is where the Microsoft Identity and Network Access (IDNA) team are making their current and future investments for automating and managing Azure Active Directory at scale.
Come join representatives of the Microsoft IDNA team as they give a potted history of Azure AD and PowerShell. They'll also cover how to get started with the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK, how to modernize your automation authentication, how to use the module for common Identity tasks, and what you can do to update your existing scripts.

Add to Calendar

No matter how complex or simple your PowerShell code is, the solution shown here will make build, test, pack and publish a lot easier and raises your code and product quality to a new level - and it is fun (mostly).
You've heard of module design considerations such as testing with Pester, linting and static analysis with ScriptAnalyzer, community best practices, but it takes a lot of effort to enforce them in a build pipeline!
In this session, we'll see how the Sampler module and templates are used across the DSC and other communities to have a unified release approach. We all don't want to waste time and here is a solution that does everything you need out of the box and considers best practices in the PowerShell and DevOps space, no matter if you use PowerShell scripts, classes, or DSC Resources. After this session, you will value Sampler to build, test, pack and publish your module and be surprised how easy the predefined tasks can be configured, how testing, linting, code coverage, automatic versioning, changelog management, documentation, and CI/CD to support works. The sampler will improve the quality of your product and save you much time.

Add to Calendar

OnRamp Class

Add to Calendar

Your Windows infrastructure is in need of wrangling. You?ve read the listicles, learned the buzzwords, and know that Configuration Management is the silver bullet that?ll solve the problem. But which tool will do the job?
At a surface glance, you?d be forgiven for thinking Ansible is only going to be a fit for a Linux environment. I?m here to tell you that it can do a damn fine job of managing your Windows boxes too. What?s more, you don?t need to throw out your existing PowerShell knowledge.Let me show you how you can ensure the state of your infrastructure with Ansible and PowerShell, idempotency and all

Add to Calendar

DevOps Pipelines allow for automated deployments. But what if your target environment is unstable or down? Attend this session to find out how Azure Monitor, Application Insights and REST API calls can make the difference between success or failure and switch to SMART automated deployments.
What is the point of running an automated pipeline deployment, if the target environment is unstable or down? Right, it doesn't make any sense. Did you know Azure has several tools like Monitor, Application Insights, and Azure Resource Graph that can "feed" information back to your pipelines, and flip the switch from failure to success in no time? Learn in this session from Peter De Tender, Azure Technical Trainer and Business Program Manager at Microsoft, what it takes to unleash Release Gates in Azure DevOps, to tame your deployments. As usual in Peter's sessions, this will be a demo-packed presentation, based on real-life scenarios.

Add to Calendar

In this session, we?ll build full-featured web apps with PowerShell that will elevate your team and make you a rock star.
PowerShell Universal is a platform for developing web-based tools based on PowerShell scripts. In this session, we will cover some of the main features of the platform. We'll look at how to create REST APIs execute PowerShell when invoked. Next, we'll create a few scripts and explore the various PowerShell integration features exposed by the PowerShell Universal host. Finally, we'll expose our APIs and scripts as web-based tools using the drag and drop page designer. By the end of this session, you'll be able to confidently create tools that will immediately provide value to your team.

Add to Calendar

As developers we concentrate on the internals of our cmdlets and functions, but their parameters are what users see: they define whether the experience of using a piece of code is good or bad: of you want yours to delight people, you?ll want the tricks and tips from this session
PowerShell parameters. Easy, right? We write them most days without even thinking. But the functions we create could be better to use, with code that is clearer and shorter, in other words, takes a lot less development effort -if we got their parameters absolutely right. This session will start with tips for recognizing parameters that ask their questions in the wrong way, or don't take the input that users want to supply and ways to improve them. This leads to when to declare parameter types and when not to, good and bad use of validation attributes. It will look at parameters sets and when dynamic parameters are a good idea (and when they should be avoided). And then it will look at custom parameter attributes for validating, transforming, and tab-completing values.

Add to Calendar

A great tool is judged by how easy it is to use and discover, and that starts in the docs. And let?s face it?everyone hates writing docs. BUT?.never fear! PowerShell is here! Docs can be automatically generated, versioned, and deployed using just a couple of tools. This is The Way!
A great tool is judged by how easy it is to use and discover, and that starts in the docs. And let?s face it?everyone hates writing docs. BUT?.never fear! PowerShell is here! Docs can be automatically generated, versioned, and deployed using just a couple of tools. This is The Way!Tools used

• Git
• PowerShell
• PlatyPS
• mkdocs

Add to Calendar

We?ll cover how principles from trauma-informed management can be applied to Site Reliability Engineering, making them more effective, productive, & happy. We?ll discuss both the concepts and implementation details of these concepts, highlighting benefits & matching them to existing SRE principles.

Description

Concepts of Discussion:

1. Psychological Safety: Emphasizing the importance of having a blameless culture & embracing risk.
2. Trustworthiness & Transparency: The psychological safety established leads to building trust, which is important during high-stress situations like incidents. Expectations for SREs & incident protocols should be clear.
3. Collaboration & Mutuality: Thorough training that involves collaboration and establishing strong peer relationships. Avoiding a ?sink & swim? training approach by using resilience & chaos engineering to introduce a lower-stress incident environment.
4. Empowerment, Voice, & Choice: Building a culture of learning and ability to own meaningful changes that make teams more productive, e.g. eliminating toil, having dedicated on-calls where non-incident time is spent on automation, etc.
5. Resiliency, Growth, & Change: Building a culture of reflection but also celebration through post-mortems & post-mortems.
6. Cultural, Historical, and Gender Issues: Respecting the experiences that every individual brings to a team and building a culture that supports them instead of alienating them.

Add to Calendar

Let?s face it, some users that will use your scripts aren?t wanting to live in a terminal. You could create an elaborate GUI with C#, or XAML, or WinForms. But for many uses that would overcomplicate things. Instead, you can use the built-in Show-Command and Out-GridView cmdlets to present a GUI.
Occasionally you will write scripts for use by colleagues. And despite all other attempts, they just won't use the scripts. Fear not! Windows PowerShell has built-in cmdlets that allow you to create a GUI that your colleagues can use for your scripts. This is where Show-Command and Out-GridView come in. And to top it all off, the only thing you need to do is build an advanced function (script cmdlet) that allows you to reuse it (which you already did anyway right?). 
Windows PowerShell comes out of the box with Show-Command and Out-GridView, two of the most underrated and powerful cmdlets for capturing and presenting data. Show-Command allows you to present options for your functions in a graphical way while Out-GridView allows you to both present data, as well as accept user selection of data in a graphical way.

Add to Calendar

Securing infrastructure and applications with SSL certificates is absolutely the best practice - but certificates can cost a significant amount of money, so don't you have to consider that? No! Use Let's Encrypt and PowerShell (with an optional sprinkling of Universal Dashboard) to let you and your users experiment with as many secured domains as they'd like! If you've ever wanted to allow folk easier access to certificates for experimenting with hosted services, generating and deploying certificates to machines, or automating certificate renewals on your servers - you may enjoy this talk. We'll cover:

• Generating certificates using PowerShell
• Self-service certificates using UD
• Certificate creation and distribution using Chocolatey
• Automating renewals

And more!

Add to Calendar