New Training: Customize Your PowerShell for Efficient AWS Automation

In this 6-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Trevor Sullivan covers how to customize PowerShell to make working with AWS more efficient. Join Trevor as he explores some of PowerShell’s customization points to integrate with AWS! Watch this new AWS training.

Learn AWS with one of these courses:

• AWS Cloud Automation

• AWS Cloud Automation with PowerShell

This training includes:

• 6 videos

• 1 hour of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Introduction to Customizing PowerShell for AWS

• Configure PowerShell Development Environment on EC2

• Customize PowerShell Prompt Function with AWS Information

• Improve Performance of PowerShell Prompt Function

• Colorize Text for AWS Shell Information

• Insert Icons and Right-Justify Text in PowerShell

2 Things You Can Do in PowerShell to AWS Easier

The AWS SDK can be accessed through a variety of programming languages and command-line environments. Amazon has gone to great lengths to ensure that AWS can be used programmatically with as many tools as possible. One of those tools is PowerShell.

PowerShell is especially suited for working with the AWS SDK because of how it treats data. PowerShell is capable of reading data as objects instead of simplified strings like Bash. This is perfect for AWS since most AWS calls require some form of a data object to work properly.

Before diving into working with AWS with PowerShell, there are a couple of things that you can do with PowerShell first to make the experience smoother.

First, after you install the AWS Tools for PowerShell cmdlet package, make sure to configure those cmdlets with your AWS IAM policies. This will save time from having to both lookup or enter your AWS credentials each time you want to pass a command to the AWS SDK. This also helps secure your environment, too.

Also, make sure to set up the credentials for your versioning system as well. Git and SVN are two of the most popular version control systems used by programmers today. It's more than likely that since you are working with PowerShell, you'll most likely be using a version control system for your PowerShell scripts. Configuring PowerShell with access to your version control system will save a lot of time down the road.