Operation of a Windows environment too often focuses on nothing more than finite feature sets of packaged products. We implement tools like MOM and SMS to assist in the automation of tasks, but we limit them to activities that we can accomplish with nothing more than a point and click.

This blog will focus on technologies supporting the automation of operations activities in Windows environments. Scripting and WMI are always  favorite topics in this arena, but we will also discuss emerging technologies like Monad. We'll discuss MOM and SMS, but we'll focus on extending their core functions. For example, rather than talking about a MOM architecture and agent deployment, we'll focus on scripting in MOM and solving complex monitoring challenges.

The idea is to approach infrastructure with an app dev mindset.  Instead of constantly seeking out utilities and packaged applicators to fill the various requirements that emerge for our daily activities we want to invest our time in more flexible technologies that will allow us to quickly build functionality to fill those gaps. We don't care to become developers, but we do want to leverage some of their strategies.