Two free live trainings from MVA on Desired State Configuration !

This week Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) will host two great live training events, one tomorrow and another one after tomorrow on Desired State Configuration.

If you are not familiar with MVA, It provides free online IT training learning of Windows, Microsoft Technologies through courses designed by industry experts.

I did not play much with this new feature but I plan to invest more time into it in the next few weeks, this is definitely the future of system configuration management. If you are like me the two following events are a great way to start!

UPDATE: Videos are now available, see links below

What is Desired State Configuration ?

DSC is a new management platform in Windows PowerShell that enables deploying and managing configuration data for software services and managing the environment in which these services run. DSC provides a set of Windows PowerShell language extensions, new Windows PowerShell cmdlets, and resources that you can use to declaratively specify how you want your software environment to be configured. It also provides a means to maintain and manage existing configurations. Source: Technet

Events details

Getting Started with PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)

• When: February 25, 2015 9am-5pm PST
• Video:http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Getting-Started-with-PowerShell-Desired-State-Configuration-DSC

Are you keeping up with PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)? It’s one of the fastest-moving technologies today. But more than that, it literally transforms how IT Implementers deploy and manage on-premises resources and those extended to the cloud for both Windows and Linux environments. Get a solid foundation with this course

Course Outline

• Getting Ready for DSC
• Performing a Push Deployment
• Configuring Pull Servers for Deployment​
• Deploying Configurations Using a Pull Server
• Resource Roundup
• Writing Better Configurations
• DSC and Linux

Advanced PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) and Custom Resources

• When: February 26, 2015 9am-5pm PST
• Video: http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/liveevents/advanced-powershell-desired-state-configuration-dsc-and-custom-resources

Are you familiar with the basics of PowerShell Desired State Configuration? Ready for a deep dive into how you can use DSC for automated deployment and management of resources? Join us for another exciting session with Jeffrey Snover, Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and inventor of PowerShell, along with Windows PowerShell MVP Jason Helmick. These top experts offer an in-depth discussion of DSC custom resources and advanced configurations.

Explore implementation and testing of custom resources, along with packaging and deployment. Learn to build composite resources, and take a look at reusable, nested, and partial configurations. Get the skills and information you need to declaratively specify how you want your software environment to be configured, and maintain and manage existing configurations in an automated way.

Course Outline

• Getting Ready for DSC Custom Resources
• Implementing and Testing
• Packaging and Deploying
• Using Classes to Build a Custom Resource
• Enhancing Custom Resources
• Building Composite Resources
• Advanced Configurations

Other DSC Resources

• Book: Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Revealed by Ravikanth Chaganti
• Book: DSC Book by PowerShell.org
• Virtual Lab: Implementing Desired State Configuration (Technet Virtual Labs)

• Virtual Lab: Windows Server 2012 R2 - Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (Technet Virtual Labs)

• Video Training: Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Fundamentals by Jeffery Hicks
• Video Training: Desired State Configuration in Windows Server 2012 R2 PowerShell by Kenneth Hansen and Jeffrey Snover (TechEd NA 2013)
• Video Training: A Practical Overview of Desired State Configuration by Don Jones (TechEd NA 2014)
• Video Training: PowerShell Desired State Configuration and DevOps in Microsoft Azure by Hemant Mahawar and Narayanan Lakshmanan (TechEd NA 2014)
• Video Training: Building DSC Resources by Steve Murawski (PowerShell Summit 2014)
• Video Training: Building Scalable Configurations With DSC by Steve Murawski (PowerShell Summit 2014)
• Video Training: Patterns For Implementing A DSC PullServer Environment by Steve Murawski (PowerShell Summit 2014)
• Video Training: The Life and Times of a DSC Resource by Steve Murawski (PowerShell Summit 2014)
• Video Training: PowerShell DSC in the AWS Cloud by Mike Pfeiffer (PowerShell Summit 2014)
• Documentation: Technet - Get Started with Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration
• Documentation: Technet - Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Resources
• Documentation: Technet - Separating Configuration and Environment Data
• Documentation: Technet - Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Local Configuration Manager
• Documentation: Technet - Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Pull Servers
• Documentation: Technet - Troubleshooting DSC
• Documentation: PowerShell Magazine - DSC posts
• Documentation: PowerShell Team Blog - DSC Posts