Exchange Administrators Will Need to Learn PowerShell

Exchange administrators planning to move to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will need to learn at least some Windows PowerShell (formerly Monad), Microsoft's command line shell and scripting language.

Exchange 2007 relies on two core administrative tools, a GUI-based Exchange Management Console (EMC) and a command-line-based Exchange Management Shell (EMS) where PowerShell commands can be used to administer Exchange. EMC does not have full feature-parity with the Exchange System Manager (ESM) tool from Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 which it replaces -- administrators will need to rely on PowerShell cmdlets (pronounced "command-lets") for some of the functionality that has been cut.

Microsoft held a Windows PowerShell workshop for independent software vendors and developers earlier this month in Redmond. It is obviously trying to encourage partners to rearchitect some of their products to support PowerShell.

Time will tell how successful Microsoft is at convincing partners to adopt this set of technologies. In addition to Microsoft building PowerShell into future versions of its other server products, getting a sizable "ecosystem" built around PowerShell is key to its success.

Either way, Exchange administrators will need to learn PowerShell once they start working with Exchange Server 2007.

... David Sengupta