Rob Reynolds: Practical Ways to Simplify Windows Administration

In this podcast installment, Rob Reynolds, software engineer at Puppet Labs, talks about some of the tools that make it easier to automate Windows environments, including Powershell, Puppet, and the package manager he wrote called Chocolatey.

This discussion is especially timely, given the release of the new Windows module pack, which includes the following Puppet Supported and Approved modules:

puppetlabs-acl for managing Access Control Lists
puppetlabs-sqlserver for installing and managing MS SQL
puppetlabs-powershell for executing PowerShell commands on Puppet-managed systems
puppet-registry for managing keys and values in the Registry
puppetlabs-reboot for managing reboots of Windows systems

Just getting started automating Windows systems? Rob recommends starting small, and adding more over time. Windows Feature is a great place to start; then, begin auditing and maintaining permissions, which will help your automation efforts in the long run.

For more information, check out the Puppet Labs documentation on Puppet on Windows as well as the Puppet Supported and Puppet Approved modules for Windows.

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