Much like the rest of the new server platforms for Microsoft (Exchange, SQL, etc) PowerShell is the new command shell that will providing administrators the ability to perform functions throughout their SharePoint farm.  In SharePoint 2010, there will be over 500+ Cmdlets that will ship out of the box for administrators to use.

PowerShell has the ability to use .NET API’s to look at and use information much like developers access objects in SharePoint.  Using these objects administrators can verify how information is stored in the system as well as dumping out reports on things like, how many sites do I have and who are the administrators of those sties.

Unlike in the PowerShell v1, where you needed to run all of your PowerShell commands on the server itself, there is a new remote interface in PowerShell v2, which SharePoint 2010 uses, that allows administrators to run these commands from their own desk without the requirement of remoting into each server.  PowerShell can also live alongside of STSADM which was the primary command administration for SharePoint 2007, but using PowerShell provides large performance increases as each command doesn’t have to load into RAM to run.

SharePoint 2010 has a new SharePoint Administration console which adds all 500+ Cmdlets to the shell, but if you already have a preferred shell that you may be using Exchange or SQL Cmdlets, you are able to add the SharePoint PowerShell snap-in objects to that same shell.

To assist with memory leaks that can happen if objects are not disposed of properly, there are a new set of commands called Start-SPAssignment and Stop-SPAssignment that acts as a garbage collector for your objects that will dispose of them properly.

There is also a nice –whatif command that let’s you test out a script before you run it by having PowerShell tell you what actions that it would have taken if the –whatif command wasn’t used

[“Brian”]