You may already know that the new Windows Management Framework has been published recently. For those who don't know what services and benefits provides, just a brief presentation:
“Windows Management Framework, which includes Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0, was officially released to the world this morning. By providing a consistent management interface across the various flavors of Windows, we are making our platform that much more attractive to deploy. IT Professionals can now easily manage their Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines through PowerShell remoting – that’s a huge win!” (Windows PowerShell Blog)
If you still don't know what these components do, you will find a wider explanation about them on the download page.
This release represents an important milestone on my particular schedule. Why? Simple ;-). One of the main goals I had when designing and implementing OpenADM was to be able to run on every version of Windows. It was acceptable if some particular module couldn't, but the core and the vast majority of the the modules provided should. Of course, given the nature of the project and the structure of my resources (surprisingly… none) allow me to declare a permanent beta period. It is the only honest way to release it I would say… 😉
Other OpenADM design goals added some other restrictions that made the use of CMD scripting the most appropriate choice at that moment. Besides that, when I started with OpenADM, PowerShell was in its very early stages. It was even called “MSH”.
Today the context has changed dramatically:
- Windows 2000 will reach its extended support life next year.
- PowerShell has matured nicely in speed, reliability and features with version 2.0.
- WinRM (and BITS) set a completely new Systems Management scenario.
- The inclusion of PowerShell as part of the Common Engineering Criteria shows growing benefits in many other domains of the Systems Management space: databases, virtualization, e-mail, collaboration, etc.
- We can have PowerShell everywhere for every flavor of Windows. Deploying Windows Management Framework doesn't seem to require a system reboot.
- Windows Management Framework doesn't add complexity to the existing Support Structures: same licenses, suppliers, contracts, processes, etc.
These changes turn the shift to PowerShell a must when talking about OpenADM. It will be a huge effort because OpenADM has currently 109.843 lines between code and metadata.
PS C:\openadm> $TotalLines=0
PS C:\openadm> Get-ChildItem * -include *.cmd,*.ini -recurse | % { $TotalLines += $(Get-Content $_ | Measure-Object).Count }
PS C:\openadm> $TotalLines
109843
Anyway, it will take some time but now it is on the schedule. I'll try automated translation techniques to aid in the process 8-D … Let's see what happens! :-D. I'm exited with the perspective of being able to run OpenADM processes natively in PowerShell in combination with Remoting, Jobs, Events and all the new stuff! 😀
So, stay tuned! 😀
