Combine the power of Bash on Linux and PowerShell on Windows to create tools that are greater than the sum of their parts.
For a long time, in the IT world, Linux and Windows admins often practiced a form of social distancing. You were either in the Windows camp, or the Linux camp. Linux providers such as SUSE, Canonical and others along with Microsoft have decided to tear down this wall that separates these two technologies. You can too!
Brett Miller wrote this article today on Get DistinguishedName from CanonicalName. I have a bunch of computers in my Active Directory tree, and I always wanted to get a short and tidy list of them so that I can better demonstrate practical PowerShell scripts in the Cimitra client. Here is how I did it thanks to Brett’s blog.
With Cimitra, a PowerShell script for stopping and starting the video player is now harnessed to a Cimitra Action available for staff to start from within a simple web browser session. The result of using Cimitra is that the lobby videos are played every day now. The office manager and the receptionists are much happier with the system.
Cimitra is part of the “Limited Access Administration” or the “Self Service Administration” movement.
Cimitra refers to the Limited Access Administration/Self Service Administration movement as “Micro-Administration“.
In the Microsoft world, Micro-Administration is called “Just Enough Administration or (JEA)“. And to be honest, as much as I adore Linux, you would be very hard pressed to accomplish what you have with Microsoft’s JEA on the Linux or MacOS platform. Here is a insightful video that explains and demonstrates “JEA”. I highly recommend you watch it to understand the needs of Microsoft enterprise customers.
Now contrast Cimitra vs. JEA
1. Cimitra users do not need any knowledge of scripting
2. Cimitra executes scripts and commands on any platform, not just Windows
3. With Cimitra an operator only needs to focus on the action to be done without any particular knowledge of….
– How the command or script is executed
– What platform the command or script needs to run on
– Where the script or command is physically located
Currently, as I write this BLOG, inside of my Cimitra account, I have push-button access to automation to commands and scripts on 7 hosts. They are: 1.) A SUSE Linux box in the cloud 2.) A Windows server that is a VMWare host 3.) A UBUNTU server which is a VMWare host. 4.) A Raspberry Pi Zero W 5.) A Raspberry Pi 3B+ 6.) My wife’s MAC 7.) My Windows 10 machine in my office.