I have been fielding a few questions about the new release of the Pure Storage PowerShell SDK and I wanted to share the answers more broadly to ensure everyone understands the details.
Question: PowerShell SDK is a replacement of PowerShell Toolkit [PSTK] and will be the preferred way to develop (at least it works without PSTK) but, if I prefer using SDK, I actually do not need PSTK anymore, is this true?
Yes and No. The PowerShell SDK is the preferred PowerShell module to use for automation development. The Toolkit is taking on a new life with value add cmdlets that have been developed to support different scenarios and applications like SQL Server, VMware, HyperV, Windows Server, best practice checkers, etc. The new Toolkit 3.0 is still under development which leverages the PowerShell SDK in some cases.
Question: Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit 3.0 is not ready yet, based on the SDK doc, I also checked online and could not download it from GitHub, is that a place holder at the moment?
Correct the new Toolkit 3.0 is not available as of yet as it is still under development. The new version of the Toolkit as with previous versions will remain open source via GitHub. The purpose of the new Toolkit remaining with an open source focus is for everyone to be able to take advantage of our work. All of the functional cmdlets that will be provided in the Toolkit are public knowledge and can be shared with anyone.
Question: Even when the Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit 3.0 is available, it will be based on the SDK released (v1.0.15.0) and on REST API, so, it will not have anything new other than what is included in the SDK?
The new Toolkit 3.0 will have the value added cmdlets as mentioned above which leverage the plethora of core Windows and application cmdlets available from Microsoft. Additionally the Toolkit 3.0 will also provide some additional encapsulation of PowerShell SDK cmdlets to assist with more streamlined operations and scenarios. Again open source so individuals can use the work from the Toolkit and customize for individual environments.
Question: I need to make a decision which tool I need to use since all my code now is based on Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit [PSTK] or RESTAPI directly.
The PowerShell SDK is a long time in the making and I am grateful (and proud) that our Pure Storage engineering team worked to develop this “official” module for Pure Storages’ support of Windows PowerShell. Moving forward we will be making updates to the PowerShell SDK as we continue to evolve the REST API. In addition to the investment of building the new PowerShell SDK we have to enable many new options for reporting which our customers find valuable. For example we have many new “Metric” cmdlets that can be viewed using Get-Command -Module PureStoragePowerShellSDK “*Metric*.”
I hope this helps answer some of the initial questions coming from existing Pure Storage PowerShell Toolkit users. If you have other questions and are an existing user please pose your questions on the Pure1 Community.
