Using Windows PowerShell in an Exchange Server 2010 Environment : Introducing the Exchange Management Shell

The Exchange Management Console (EMC) is actually a graphical user interface (GUI) for the Exchange Management Shell, or EMS. Each task or operation that an administrator does using the Exchange System Console is actually calling an underlying EMS command or series of commands. There is nothing that can be done from the EMC that cannot be done from EMS. However, there are a lot of commands and operations that can only be done from EMS. This is simply because Microsoft has not written a GUI front end for these tasks.

Because EMS is based on PowerShell V2, administrators have access to the full set of features built in to PowerShell, plus custom extensions written by the Exchange Server 2010 team. These Exchange Server 2010-specific commands, or cmdlets, leverage the simplicity and power of PowerShell to perform common and some not-so-common Exchange Server tasks. Also, because EMS is now based on PowerShell V2, administrators can now perform Exchange Server administration from a remote computer.

Administrators can now do almost every single administrative task with an interactive command line. EMS can be used to quickly check settings, create reports, check the health of the Exchange servers, or, best of all, automate all the administrator’s frequent operations.

Scripting and automation are key to lowering total cost of ownership for Exchange Server administrators. By providing a simple platform that enables administrators to create, save, and distribute their own cmdlets, EMS enables administrators to easily extend Exchange Server functionality and administrative tasks that are appropriate for their support structure and line of business. This, combined with Rights-Based Access Control (RBAC), provides a significant benefit to the IT organization.

Since Exchange Server’s early beginnings, Exchange Server administrators have requested ways to manage all the buttons and knobs that are built in to Exchange Server. The GUI allows only the administrator to do as much as the GUI was programmed to do. Now that all these objects and settings are available through EMS, administrators are free to develop, customize, save, and distribute their own cmdlets to Exchange Server support staff for maximum effectiveness.

The power of EMS can be used to automate many different types of tasks. Imagine creating 10,000 test user accounts for a test lab with one line of code or setting a 200MB mailbox quota on all Sales Team mailboxes in the organization with one line. That’s the power of the Exchange Management Shell.

The Exchange Management Shell and PowerShell replace VBScript, WMI, ADSI, LDP, and more—all within a single command-line interface. Tasks that used to require specialized scripting knowledge can now be easily learned using extensive help within the shell.

Cmdlets that administrators create can be modified to do other tasks. Administrators will quickly build a set of cmdlets that they will use and recycle into new and more complex sets of functions.

A common question asked by administrators is whether complex scripting is required in EMS to do simple tasks. Do administrators have to learn complex syntax and command switches to manage Exchange Server? Exchange Management Shell is extremely powerful, yet very easy to learn, and helps to simplify many tasks that previously had to be done by developers or programmers.

When the Exchange Server 2010 team started designing the Exchange Server command-line and scripting interface, they made sure that 80 percent of Microsoft customers, who normally have little or no scripting experience, can still use the PowerShell/Exchange Server command line to automate or perform their tasks.

EMS makes it easier to administer Exchange Server 2010 by making administration more safe, easy, and fun. It improves the developer experience by making it easier to add command-line management capabilities using Microsoft .NET. It improves the administrative experience by enabling information technology (IT) professionals to write secure automation scripts that can run locally or remotely.

An abundance of resources are available to the administrator who uses EMS and PowerShell. Microsoft is committed to publishing dozens of example scripts and cmdlets highlighting some of the more common administrative tasks. Numerous other websites and utilities are also devoted to PowerShell.

Understanding the EMS Is the Back End to the Exchange Management Console

The Exchange Management Console is simply a GUI to Exchange Management Shell. Whenever an operation is performed in EMC, it calls a set of cmdlets in EMS and presents the results back to the GUI.

Everything an administrator can do in EMC can be done in EMS but not always vice versa. If the Exchange Server 2010 team were to add every configuration setting to the EMC, it would be too complicated and cumbersome to navigate. Their goal was to put the most-common administrative tasks in EMC.

When administrators perform most operations in EMC, the EMS command used to execute the task is presented in the GUI, similar to the screen shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Sample EMC Wizard showing EMS commands.

Additionally, all the wizards in the Exchange Server 2010 EMC include the command that is created when you use an EMC Wizard to create or modify an Exchange Server object. By clicking the Show Exchange Management Shell Command button in the lower-left corner of the wizard, the wizard completion window shows the command that would be run. It can also be copied to the Clipboard for use in the EMS directly.