t h e D a v i d A i k e n

A long time ago, before the cloud, I did a whole bunch of work with the PowerShell team. The “in” thing to do when working on PowerShell is to solve IT problems with just 1 line of PowerShell. Ok sometimes this one line could be huge, but 1 line nevertheless.

A few weeks back when getting ready for the 1st cloud cover show, we (Steve Marx, Ryan and I) wanted to show how you could use the Windows Azure Management PowerShell Cmdlets to get the current service status, and show it in a chart. The solution never made the show, but here it is in all of its single line glory (i included the line number for fun)

   1:   (get-deployment -Slot Production -Servicename 'myapp' -Certificate (Get-Item cert:\CurrentUser\My\4445574B0BADAEAA6433E7A5A6169AF9D3136234) -subscriptionId 87654387-9876-9876-9867-987656543482).RoleInstanceList | group-object InstanceStatus | Select Name, Count | out-chart -gallery Lines -DataGrid_Visible true -refresh 0:1:0 -Glass -Title ‘MyApp Instances' 

1. Install the Windows Azure Management PowerShell Cmdlets.
2. Create a certificate to manage your service and install into your subscription at the portal.
3. Download and install a trial of PowerGadgets from http://www.softwarefx.com/sfxSqlProducts/powerGadgets/ (if you want the graphs)