Foreword
By supporting this book, either as a contributor or a purchaser, you’ve become part of a long tradition in the PowerShell community: a tradition of bootstrapping our own efforts and supporting each other in those efforts. Especially around conferences.
Once upon a time, Microsoft itself ran conferences around some of its major products: Exchange Server, the System Center family, SharePoint, their developer products, and more. But never for PowerShell. The PowerShell team was able to cajole NetPro, the software vendor behind “The Experts Conference,” into running a 50-person “PowerShell Deep Dive.” That lasted for two years until Quest Software acquired NetPro, and “The Experts Conference” was discontinued. So the PowerShell team turned to the one ally they knew wouldn’t ever let them down, and wouldn’t ever go away: the community itself.
PowerShell’s community of users was already widespread by then. But they’d started pulling together one-day, low-cost “PowerShell Saturday” events, inspired by the SQL Server community’s “SQL Saturdays” (notably, Microsoft never ran their own SQL Server conference either, instead partnering with a community organization to run PASS). When Microsoft said, “We really need a place to engage with our PowerShell power users,” the community stepped up, and in 2013 PowerShell Summit North America was born. That spawned PowerShell Summit Europe for two years and eventually morphed into PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit. PowerShell Conference Asia and PowerShell Conference Europe were launched, demonstrating the global breadth and commitment of PowerShell’s fan base. Importantly, all of these events were run as not-for-profits, providing a service to the community and basically attempting to break even.
PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit, run by the nonprofit DevOps Collective, Inc., started to take on more responsibilities. The organization runs a small, close-knit DevOps Camp event in the summers, and helps run several PowerShell Saturday and other regional events throughout the year. They provide financial support to other nonprofits that help bring young people from disadvantaged situations into the IT field. They continue to run the PowerShell.org website, and do a lot on a daily basis to provide rallying points and networking opportunities for the PowerShell community. Your purchase of this book helps support that organization’s efforts throughout the year, and you owe yourself a little pat on the back for helping out.
2020 was a bad year for conferences. The SARS-CoV-2 virus forced pretty much every conference to either “go virtual” or cancel outright, which is a shame. While I personally love the reach that a virtual event can have, there’s simply no way to replace the kind of in-person contact and networking that live conferences have. PowerShell + DevOps Summit, in particular, was well-known for its friendly, easy-to-talk-to audience. It’s like a giant user group that meets once a year, and its attendees routinely praise not only its content but its positive impact on their overall careers. Summit will return, make no mistake, and I hope you’ll make every effort to attend in person when it does.
In the meantime, this conference-in-a-book is a fantastic way to capture some of the technology presentations that you probably would have seen at Summit. Most of the authors who contributed to this book aren’t professional writers, which makes their efforts even more valuable. It’s hard, sometimes, to “break out of your shell” and contribute to a work like this one. But when you do, as I think most of these authors will tell you, it’s incredibly rewarding. It’s doubly rewarding when your efforts are appreciated by others, so please: take a minute to reach out to these authors on social media and thank them for their contributions here. Perhaps you can contribute to next year’s volume and learn what it feels like!
I’ve worked within the PowerShell community since its inception in 2006, and every year I’m more and more proud of it. An increasing number of people are noticing needs in the community—like the need for this book—and stepping up to help make it happen. That is what community is all about: rather than waiting for someone else to “get ‘er done,” you jump in and help make it happen yourself. This community has probably done more to help itself than any tech community I’ve ever been a part of, and it’s amazing to see.
So enjoy this Third Edition of the PowerShell Conference Book. Tell your colleagues about it, and ask them to buy their own copy. Heck, ask the boss to pick up copies for the whole team. In doing so, you’re not only adding to your own knowledge base and enhancing your career, you’re supporting a wonderful organization and an amazing community of people that gives us all so much value.
Thank you for your support, and thank you for being a part of the community.
Don Jones
Co-Founder, The DevOps Collective, Inc.