Vista - PowerShell Project?

Hello, all.

At work, we have many duplicate BAT files that essentially copy files, move
files, rename files, and FTP files to various locations both locally on the
same machine and to other remote machines. The current environment consists
mainly of BAT files and COBOL .EXE programs. The COBOL programs basically
read the contents of files and extracts the totals and whatnot from it and
then creates other "database" type files to store the information. There
are a few static HTML pages that are also updated.

This entire process basically runs in a loop 24x7.

My issue with the process is that is crap. There is virtually no
error-checking. If a copy failes, no one knows about it until the client
doesn't get their files. If an FTP fails, no one knows about it until
client doesn't get their files. If there is a script change, we typically
have to update/modify hundreds of similar BAT files (to keep them
consistent) and have no good way to test. There is also no recovery points
within the script. If a task fails, someone typically has to manually copy
files or figure out where the script was at time of failure.

This entier process is very hard to maintain, isn't very administratively
friendly, and is very antiquated. This is basically what happens when you
have mainframe programmers write server-side scripts and automation.

Here comes my question:

I would like to re-do this entire system in PowerShell.

I would like to have parameter files or XML files that I can store client
settings, options and easily retrieve them.

I would also like to have one common script, or a few scripts that perform a
particular task that is called by a main script.

I need error-checking for file copies, FTPs, etc.

I would also like to leverage ASP.NET and perhaps either create an XML file
that I can use ASP.NET 2.0 Data Binding of XML to display the customer
information for our operators when verifying totals and file delivery.

Has anyone else done anything this ambitious with PowerShell before?

I know Microsoft has a lot of cool technologies out there and to me WorkFlow
Foundation sounds like a good candidate for the scripts, but I do not see
how I can easily add it to a PowerShell script or if it would be easy to
update.

Before starting my PowerShell project, I was wondering if I should have
cmdlets or functions for various routines to copy and FTP files.

I figure I will eventually have to try and rewrite the 4 or 5 COBOL programs
to .NET C# to avoid some of the limitations and licensing restrictions with
using MicroFocus COBOL, plus to totally get away from the mainframe world.

My last question related to this is:

Does anyone know of any rent-a-coder or someone that I can temporarily or
permanently hire to do this sort of project? I know it will take me a while
and I'd rather find someone that has the skills to do it rather than me
having to learn as I go.

Thanks!

Where are you based?
--
Richard Siddaway
Please note that all scripts are supplied "as is" and with no warranty
Blog: http://richardsiddaway.spaces.live.com/
PowerShell User Group: http://www.get-psuguk.org.uk


"dm3281" wrote:

Hello dm3281,
quite a long question, so you'll have to start bit - by - bit.
powershell seems a good candidate for you development since it has excellent
file reading and parsing mechanisms.

the error handling in powershell is still not ideal, something you would
need for production scripts that run 24x7. for instance there is nog try
.... catch mechanism

in the tread below this one 'how to automate ftp using powershell' you can
find some answers about FTP related cmdlets that you could incorporate in
your scripts.

Greetz,
Ben


"dm3281" <dm3281@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45FD10C6-93D8-40BA-B18C-AC4A7C8CE4D7@xxxxxx

"Zanten, Ben van" <BZanten@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:A4FA6EC0-A7DF-4930-AAE5-90A10E5D4FD8@xxxxxx+1. All of our build and regression test harness scripts are PowerShell
based and they have been working well. I have modularized these scripts so
using one PowerShell script from another isn't a problem.
-1. trap is effectively a try/catch mechanism. PowerShell also
distinguishes between terminating and non-terminating errors. All-in-all I
would say error handling in PowerShell is very powerful. The missing error
handling functionality is that there is no "finally" equivalent. Also the
logging support in PowerShell is a bit weak.

With a 24x7 script you will need to keep an eye on memory consumption. In
fact every once in a while it might be worth executing
[System.GC]::Collect().

--
Keith

Hi --

We have main office in Glastonbury, CT and a satellite office in Virginia
Beach, VA.

I'm not saying there is a position or anything -- I would have to get it
approved and whatnot. But I'm just throwing it out there since it's a
possibility.




"RichS" <RichS@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0862CDEA-302F-43F4-822F-41F8565F7156@xxxxxx

Thanks --

Yes, I want want error logging. There are just a serious of ECHO >>
logfilename.log today in the script. Which is OK, but doesn't really catch
everything. I know I can use Log4Net, but that, too, is a bit of a hassle
and not a sure thing, but does have lots of output options... SMTP, file,
database, etc.



"Keith Hill [MVP]" <r_keith_hill@xxxxxx_spam_I> wrote in message
news:F50C4426-702F-4DFE-B396-4977BB80F7D9@xxxxxx

Hi,

For what it's worth I recently set up a system, that sounds a little
bit similar to what you seem to be describing,
across a clients 24 Win2003 servers. 22 of those machine were churning
out reports every 15 minutes and
the customer was chasing those reports around their network using
batch files and vbscript developed by ppl who
didn't get what was really needed.

Now I have a ps script run as a scheduled task 6 time a day on each
machine to propel the data to machine 23 and
24 where additional ps scripts run 6 times a day to transform all the
raw data into much more meaningful
and pleasing summaries of whats been going on everywhere. These
reports are archived as part of the script and the
value that has been added by analysing the content line by line
looking for customer meaningful patterns is amazing -
directly contributing to major commercial decisions and were not
talking pennies.

I put this together on the hoof over a period of a couple of weeks
developing on the fly and I'm a PS newbie really.

Powershell makes it possible for ordinary people (like me) to do
extraordinary things with Microsoft Windows.

Good luck

Stuart

Thanks for the reply.

The more I think about it, I almost think I need to use WorkFlow Foundation,
but that would probably mean having a console .EXE program or something
spawning off tasks and junk. Not sure if that is way overkill and would
make modifying the scripts in the future a bit more work.

The other big think is options.

Today, the BAT file has a bunch of parameter files, one per customer, which
is another reason why each customer has its own .BAT... which makes
maintenance and administration really tendious as more and more customers
are cloned.

I'm sure Powershell would be much better than what I have now--especially
with the date parsing, file checking, error checking, and the full power of
..NET. I just want to be sure I'm on the right track first. It's either
that or go back and use BAT along with VBscript and .EXE programs.




"Keith Hill [MVP]" <r_keith_hill@xxxxxx_spam_I> wrote in message
news:F50C4426-702F-4DFE-B396-4977BB80F7D9@xxxxxx

Hi -- I couldn't find the FTP and Cmdlet post that you were referring to??


"Zanten, Ben van" <BZanten@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:A4FA6EC0-A7DF-4930-AAE5-90A10E5D4FD8@xxxxxx

In my browser, it is 9 threads below this one, it is called 'how to automate
ftp using powershell?' and I didn't want to repeat that information here,
so I assume you can find that thread.

Ben

"dm3281" <dm3281@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:320A03B6-7AE5-410E-9219-C9AB1D7FE7D7@xxxxxx