Windows PowerShell : Working With Web Services (Post CTP2 V2 Feature)

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Working With Web Services (Post CTP2 V2 Feature)

Let me start by first apologizing for sharing some information that you are not going to be able to go out and try right away.  During one of the interactive Q&A sessions at TechEd, people asked about working with Web Services.  I referred to a feature that we were working on and then Hal Rottenberg asked me to blog about some of the details.  I'm not sure that this is a good idea because while we have it coded up and in the nightly builds, that is not a guarantee that it will make it into the next version (we often have to cut features in order to create bandwidth to increase the quality of other features).  That said, I'm going to go out on the limb a bit and share with you what we are working on.

First let's start with motivation (you should always start with motivation.  If you know WHY someone  is doing something, it is easier to get things in focus and provide meaningful feedback).  PowerShell is ALL about helping you get your job done with the minimal amount of effort (I've been thinking about calling this the "Cheap EATs" model where EAT stands for "Effort to Accomplish Task").   With that comes the observation that we live in an evolving world.  To accomplish your task, you need to easily access a wide range of technologies.  That is why we invest in giving you great access to WMI, ADSI, COM, XML, .NET, ADO, etc etc.  More and more things are now available as Web Services so we want to make it easy for you to get at them as well. 

As such, we have speced and implemented the cmdlet:  New-WebServiceProxy.    This command connects to a Web Service and generates a .NET proxy to that service.  Let me show you how it works using a web service which works with USZIP codes

See PowerShell Blog Post for code!

Windows PowerShell : Working With Web Services (Post CTP2 V2 Feature)