Code Library

Visual Studio is an incredibly powerful tool for creating and managing solutions hosted in Azure. As great as it is, Visual Studio might not be the right tool for all scenarios. Instead, a scripting tool such as PowerShell could be the right choice. Scenarios in which PowerShell might be preferred include the following:

 Tool for IT professionals Many IT professionals do not use Visual Studio for management of on-premises assets. It makes sense that they would not want to use Visual Studio for Azure-hosted assets, either. Instead, PowerShell is often one of the preferred tools, especially for managing Windows environments.


 Automating provisioning and deployment of Azure resources PowerShell provides a rich scripting environment for automating the provisioning and deployment of Azure resources. By using PowerShell scripts, you can automate the provisioning and management of Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Storage accounts, Azure Web Apps, Azure Virtual Networks, Azure Cloud Services, and much more.

Using PowerShell scripts to automate common tasks in Azure is also a great way to reduce potential errors. The scripts can be tested thoroughly, secured in a source control system, and repeatedly used with confidence that the same results will always be achieved. Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates are often invoked via a PowerShell script.

If you have a task that you are going to perform repeatedly, it is beneficial to automate the task. It might take a greater time commitment initially to develop the script, but doing so will save a substantial amount of time every time you reuse it.


 Accessing advanced or new Azure features not included in the Azure tools for Visual Studio or the Azure portal The Azure PowerShell cmdlets provide features that may not currently be available in Visual Studio. The update and release frequency for Azure PowerShell cmdlets is faster than that of the Azure SDK for Visual Studio. Because of this, you will often see new features appear in the PowerShell cmdlets (and REST API) before they appear in Visual Studio.

Additionally, new features are often released that are surfaced in the Azure PowerShell cmdlets but are not surfaced in the Azure portal (at least initially). This allows the Microsoft Azure product team to release the feature—and in some cases, fine-tune it—before releasing the feature to the Azure portal and any related UI elements.

Source of Information : Microsoft Azure Essentials Fundamentals of Azure Second Edition