Managing Office 365 in PowerShell

Remote Office

Conclusions

Microsoft's PowerShell provides a powerful shell with many options for managing local servers. In addition to the standard operating systems by Microsoft, all current server applications, such as Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, and Lync, support PowerShell-based administration. If your company additionally uses cloud services like Windows Azure and Office 365, it makes sense to manage them in PowerShell, too. The advantages of this approach are obvious: Administrators can manage local servers and cloud services in the same session. Additionally, many options and features in PowerShell are much faster and easier to handle than in the various web interfaces.

If you have some experience with scripting, you can also compose scripts for comprehensive management of your services. These scripts can perform changes in local and cloud services in parallel. Because Microsoft provides the extensions for PowerShell free of charge, administrators should seriously look into their options. With a little training, you can use PowerShell to manage many services quickly and easily – including ones that run in the cloud.

Infos

Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant: http://search.microsoft.com/en-gb/DownloadResults.aspx?q=microsoft%20online%20services%20sign-in%20assistant
Azure AD module (32-bit): http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=236298
Azure AD module (64-bit): http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=236297
Office 365 login: https://portal.microsoftonline.com/OLS/MySoftware.aspx
Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant for IT Professionals RTW: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=28177
Set-MsolUserLicense: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn194094.aspx
Changing Office 365 licenses with PowerShell: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn530771.aspx
Azure downloads: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/downloads

The Author

Thomas Joos is a freelance IT consultant and has been working in IT for more than 20 years. In addition to his projects, he writes hands on books and papers on Windows and other Microsoft topics. Online you can meet him on http://thomasjoos.spaces.live.com.

« Previous 1 2 3