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This document describes the business benefits of using PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC), and isn't a technical guide.
PowerShell DSC is a configuration management platform built into Windows that is based on open standards. DSC is flexible enough to function reliably and consistently in each stage of the deployment lifecycle (development, test, pre-production, production), and during scale-out.
DSC centers around configurations. A configuration is PowerShell script that describes an environment made up of computers, or nodes, with specific characteristics. These characteristics can be as simple as ensuring a specific Windows feature is enabled or as complex as deploying SharePoint.
DSC has monitoring and reporting built-in. If a system is no longer compliant, DSC can raise an alert and act to correct the system.
The configuration's design simplifies how they're read, stored, and updated. Configurations declare the state of target devices, rather than writing instructions for how to place devices in that state. These factors reduce the costs to learn, adopt, implement, and maintain configuration through DSC.
Creating configurations means that complex deployment steps are captured as a single source of truth in a single location. Configurations make repeated deployments of a specific set of machines less error-prone. And, deployments are faster and more reliable, which enables a quick turnaround on complex deployments.
Configurations are shareable via the PowerShell Gallery. It's possible that common scenarios and best practices might already exist for the work you need to do.
DSC was designed with DevOps in mind. A combination of people, processes, and tools that allow for rapid deployment and iteration focused on delivering value to end users whether internal or external. A single configuration that defines an environment means that developers can encode their requirements into a configuration and check that configuration into source control. Operations teams can then deploy code without going through error-prone manual processes.
Configurations are data-driven. The defined data makes it easier for operations to identify and change environments without developer intervention.
DSC can manage on-premises and off-premises deployments. For on-premises solutions, DSC has a Pull Server that's used to centralize management of machines and report on their status. For off-premises cloud solutions, DSC is usable any place Windows is usable. There are specific offerings from Azure built on DSC, such as Azure Automation, that centralizes DSC reporting.
DSC was introduced in Windows Server 2012 R2, but it's available for down-level operating systems via the Windows Management Framework (WMF). For more information about WMF, see Windows Management Framework.
DSC can be used to manage Linux. For more information, see Getting Started with DSC for Linux.
DSC feedback
DSC is an open source project. Select a link to provide feedback:
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Implement Desired State Configuration (DSC) - Training
Implement Desired State Configuration (DSC)
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