1. Common Uses of EMS
The
Exchange Management Shell delivers powerful, single-line commands for
scripting and robust reporting tools for administrators. EMS is
commonly used to perform most all administrative and reporting
functions. It is also used to make bulk changes to many objects at once.
Understanding Administrative Functions
The
bulk of an Exchange administrator’s duties in Exchange revolve around
administrative functions. These functions include the following:
Mailbox management— Adding, changing, and deleting mailboxes, contact, and distribution group membership in the Exchange organization
Setting limits on users— Applying quota limits to some or all mailboxes in the organization
Moving mailboxes between servers— Moving mailboxes between Exchange servers and mailbox stores within the organization
Configuring Exchange parameters—
Setting all configuration settings of the Exchange environment,
including server, connector, policy, rules, and unified messaging
configuration
Understanding Reporting Functions of EMS
Reporting
is another function with which administrators are frequently tasked.
The Exchange Management Shell makes robust reporting functions easy.
Examples of some of the reports that can be generated are as follows:
Largest mail users— A report listing the largest mailboxes in the Exchange organization
Messaging routing traffic— A report displaying mail routing and transport statistics for servers or the entire organization
User distribution— A report listing the mailbox distribution across all servers, storage groups, and mailbox stores in the organization
Mailbox size distribution— A report showing the size of each mailbox in each mail store on one or more servers in the organization
2. Explaining the Difference Between PowerShell and EMS
The
Exchange Management Shell is based on Microsoft PowerShell, which
provides access to all .NET objects and classes. When the administrator
installs Exchange Server 2007, the setup program automatically installs
the .NET Framework and PowerShell. It also installs all the Exchange
2007 specific cmdlets.
The cmdlets were
written by the Exchange 2007 team to perform Exchange-specific tasks.
There are over 350 cmdlets unique to Exchange and each cmdlet has its
own set of help.
Common PowerShell Functions in EMS
Because the Exchange Management Shell is based on PowerShell, it shares many functions with it.
EMS
shares the same verb-noun syntax for all operations and cmdlets as
PowerShell. This gives a consistent logical experience for the
administrator while working in the EMS environment.
Comprehensive
tab completion is also present in EMS and PowerShell. When the
administrator presses the Tab key after typing some text, the function TabExpansion
is called to generate the list of possible completion matches. Tab
completion works on variables and parameters on cmdlets in addition to
filename completion. Administrators can also define custom tab
completions.
Both EMS and PowerShell offer
a comprehensive help system with examples. Administrators can get both
general and cmdlet-specific help within the command environment. The
help systems support wildcards. Knowing the strong naming conventions
used in the environment, administrators can leverage wildcards to guess
at what they are looking for.
EMS
and PowerShell cmdlets both offer an interactive completion process.
The administrator can enter as many cmdlet parameters as he is
comfortable with, and the command environment will prompt for the
missing required parameters. This is very helpful for seldom-used
cmdlets.
Unique EMS Functions Specific to Exchange
The
Exchange Management Shell offers over 350 unique cmdlets that were
written by the Exchange 2007 team specifically for Exchange. Each of
these cmdlets has been optimized for performance, and they are the
building blocks for all Exchange management functions.
Some
Exchange operations and tasks take time to complete. Moving large
mailboxes across a wide area network (WAN), for example, can take
several minutes to complete. When operations like these take place, a
textual status bar is presented at the top of the display indicating
the progress of the task.
