Managing the SO-Aware Repository with PowerShell

As Jesus mentioned in this post, SO-Aware provides three interfaces for managing the service repository. An OData API in case you want to integrate third applications with the repository. OData is a pure http API that can be easily consumed in any platform using a simple http client library. The management portal, which is an ASP.NET MVC user interface layered on top of the OData API and probably the one most people will use. And finally, a PowerShell provider that also mounts on top of the OData API to allow administrators to automate management tasks over the repository with scripting. 

The SO-Aware PowerShell provider, in that sense offers around 40 commands that enables simple management scenarios like registering bindings or services or more complex scenarios that involves testing services or sending alerts when a service is not properly working.  

This provider can be registered as an snapin in an existing script using the following command,

$snapin = get-pssnapin  | select-string "SOAwareSnapIn"
if ($snapin -eq $null)
{
    Add-PSSnapin "SOAwareSnapIn"
}

Once you have registered the snapin, you can start using most of the commands for managing the repository.

The first and more important command is “Set-SWEndpoint”, which allows you to connect to an existing SO-Aware instance. This command receives the OData service location as first argument, and it looks as follow,

Set-SWEndpoint -uri http://localhost/SOAware/ServiceRepository.svc

As next step, you can start managing or querying data from the repository using the rest of the commands. For instance, the following example registers a new binding in the repository only if it was not created already

function RegisterBinding([string]$name,[string]$type,[string]$xml)
{
    $binding = GetBinding($name);
    if(!$binding)
    {
       Add-SWBinding -Name $name -BindingType $type -Configuration $xml
    }
}


function GetBinding([string]$name)
{
    $bindings = Get-SWBindings
    foreach($binding in $bindings)
    {
        if($binding.Name -eq $name)
        {
            return $binding
        }
    }
}


RegisterBinding "stsBinding" "ws2007HttpBinding" "<binding>
        <security mode='Message'>
            <message clientCredentialType='UserName' establishSecurityContext='false' negotiateServiceCredential='false'/>
        </security>
 </binding>";

As you can see, this provider brings a powerful toy that administrators in any organization can use to manage services or governance aspects by leveraging their scripting knowledge.