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Powershell – The DSC book

Don Jones (@concentrateddon) is writing this awesome book about DSC. Please help him review the contents and make suggestions. You may leave feedback on the Powershell.org/FAQ web page (just create a new post there).
I have been working as an consultant in IT since 1999, I have done a lot of strange “things” (work related that is). I have done my fair share of vb-scripting and small GUIs or console application development using vb.net etc. I have even created an automation solution/"framework" with powershell and .net (.net Forms). I have been using powershell since exchange 2007, however the last 2 years I have been a “heavy” user writing advanced scripts/functions, dot-sourcing, creating small modules etc. Full disclosure; I am not exaggerating when I say I am super excited about DSC.

 My comments (in random order, when I say you/your I target Mr Jones, I think :-))
  • DSC resources – As you mention Microsoft has released 2 waves of additional resources for DSC. What are your thoughts about using these resources in production compared to creating your own custom DSC resources. They are marked x for experimental according to Microsoft…
  • Overall strategy/design of a DSC "solution" – I must admit I struggled with how you should create the configuration when you are limited to a single MOF-file. That is until I read a post about Composite resources in January I think. It is super important that people understand how they go about creating their DSC structure. Maybe you could include some general key "design-rules" for the DSC solution.
  • Credentials and security – Take the package resource (built-in). It is not perfectly clear that the credentials you supply is used for accessing the network location you have specified for the SourceFiles and not for the "installation" of the package (since you brought up the productID challenge).
  • Complicated application packages – How or can do you install those with DSC. Say you have an installer that is capable of setting up an application in an scaleout manner, that is you install the application and the database is hosted on another computer and the setup/installer does the initial configuration for the database. Could you use DSC for that? If so an example would be very cool and most helpful.
  • Show how to use multiple dependencies for DependsOn - DependsOn = @("[WindowsFeature]HyperV", "[File]VHDFolder")
  • Why DSC – The argument for DSC – More information and marketing (like this book) is needed to promote the new way of configuring your datacenter and infrastructure. Even with your rants – i like those by the way – there is still people that do not get the full picture of what is slowly happening. Automation is the future, however if you are scoping your book to a wide audience, perhaps you could include an executive summary for the none-technical readers that are wondering what the DSC-fuzz is all about.
  • Monitoring of DSC – Being a System Center guy with focus on SCOM, I would like to monitor DSC  with an ManagementPack (monitor both the PUSH/PULL infrastructure and the individual DSC target nodes testing for configuration drift). It maybe of topic for your book, however this may be where compliance comes into play somehow?
  • Azure/Windows Azure Pack – Wouldn’t it be a wonderful to have DSC resource for it?
  • ConfigMgr Desired State vs Powershell DSC – Why use Powershell DSC instead. I do not know if the desired state in ConfMgr is used by organizations,maybe they rely on GPO?
  • Group Policy vs Powershell DSC – Must also admit that I have a love2hate relationship with GPO. Why should enterprises start to replace GPO with DSC? What can you write to convince them that DSC is the bucket of gold they shall find at the end of the rainbow?
  • How to prevent overwriting of the current configuration for a node by accident or pure evil intent. Compliance I guess?
Please feel free to ignore the comments that does not suit your thoughts or the scope of your book. Keep up the good work, we are hungry for more.

 Cheers
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