It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a standout book on PowerShell in today’s crowded market. I’m sure everyone is familiar with such books as:
- “Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches” (best for newbies)
- “Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month Lunches” (best for learners).
- “Windows PowerShell in Action” (best handbook)
Let’s assume you have read the first two and are trying to find the next one to completely master PowerShell skills, get more practice, and gain insights. Allow me to introduce “Practical Automation with PowerShell” by Matthew Dowst.
Surprisingly to me, this book became my favorite (despite having read several bestsellers, some of which are mentioned above), and I thoroughly enjoyed both reading and reviewing it. The main reason is its comprehensive table of contents, which addresses everything one encounters on a daily basis: automation of clouds, on-premise servers, databases, and other essential tasks.
Click to see TOC
- 1. POWERSHELL AUTOMATION
- 2. GET STARTED AUTOMATING
- 3. SCHEDULING AUTOMATION SCRIPTS
- 4. HANDLING SENSITIVE DATA
- 5. POWERSHELL REMOTE EXECUTION
- 6. MAKING ADAPTABLE AUTOMATIONS
- 7. WORKING WITH SQL
- 8. CLOUD-BASED AUTOMATION
- 9. WORKING OUTSIDE OF POWERSHELL
- 10. AUTOMATION CODING BEST PRACTICES
- 11. END-USER SCRIPTS AND FORMS
- 12. SHARING SCRIPTS AMONG A TEAM
- 13. TESTING YOUR SCRIPTS
- 14. MAINTAINING YOUR CODE
- APPENDIX A: DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT SET UP
The book teaches you how to design, write, test and maintain your scripts. If you work as a part of team – this book is also for you: “Handling sensitive data” and “Sharing scripts among a team” chapters are awesome and extremely helpful. Additionally, it covers integration with Jenkins, Azure Automation and Azure Functions. Consequently, after reading the book, you will be able to execute automations in mixed environments with different sets of services.
I highly recommend this book to anyone passionate about PowerShell. However, if you’re just starting out, I suggest beginning with “month of lunches” books before diving into this one to refine your skills and develop an automation engineer’s mindset.
Kudos to the author for an excellent work!