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RELEASE NOTES

Version 2012.03.21.00

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More cmdlets added for managing Windows Azure Traffic Manager in this version.
12 new cmdlets added in this version for managing Windows Azure Traffic Manager. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

Add-TrafficManagerEndpoint

Adds a new endpoint to monitor.

Disable-TrafficManagerEndpoint

Disables an existing endpoint to monitor.

Disable-TrafficManagerProfile

Disables a traffic manager profile.

Enable-TrafficManagerEndpoint

Enables an existing endpoint to monitor.

Enable-TrafficManagerProfile

Enables an existing traffic manager profile.

Get-TrafficManagerDefinition

Gets information about a traffic manager profile definition.

Get-TrafficManagerProfile

Gets information about a traffic manager profile.

New-TrafficManagerDefinition

Creates a new traffic manager profile definition and enables it.

New-TrafficManagerEndpoint

Creates an object representing an endpoint to monitor. This cmdlet should be used in conjunction with New-TrafficManagerDefinition.

New-TrafficManagerProfile

Creates a new traffic manager profile.

Remove-TrafficManagerEndpoint

Removes an endpoint to monitor.

Remove-TrafficManagerProfile

Removes a traffic manager profile.

Bug fixes
A few bugs related to uploading folders and table data download/upload were discovered. These bugs are fixed in this release.

 

Version 2011.08.29.00

Included support for storage analytics tables and blob container.
Recently Windows Azure team announced the availability of Storage Analytics ( http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2011/08/03/windows-azure-storage-analytics.aspx) which will allow users to get granular information about the storage utilization.

In this version, we have included support for tables ($MetricsCapacityBlob, $MetricsTransactionsBlob, $MetricsTransactionsQueue, and $MetricsTransactionsTable) and blob container ($logs) containing analytics data.

Now using Azure Management Cmdlets, you can download data from these tables (Export-Table) and blob container (Export-BlobContainer) on your local computer for further analysis. Also when backing up storage account (except development storage account) data, data from these tables and blob container will also be downloaded. To skip backing up these objects, we have included an optional switch parameter (-SkipAnalyticsData).

Please note that while restoring storage account data, these tables and blob container are skipped as these objects are "read only".

To make full use of storage account analytics, we have released a free utility which will allow you to configure storage analytics parameters for a storage account. You can download/install this utility from here:
Blog/post/Cerebrata-Windows-Azure-Storage-Analytics-Configuration-Utility-A-Free-Utility-to-Configure-Windows-Azure-Storage-Analytics.aspx

 

Version 2011.08.09.00

Included better support for pipelining. Based on the feedback we have received from the PowerShell community, we have revamped our Cmdlets considerably. The most important change that we have done is made all of our cmdlets more pipeline friendly. As a result of it, almost all the cmdlets will now write certain objects to the output (using WriteObject) which you can use to pipeline that output as an input to another cmdlet. We have prepared a document which will tell you exactly which cmdlets will write what objects and what are the members of these objects. It is strongly recommended that you go through this document as with this build it is possible that your existing scripts may break if they are using cmdlet pipelining in some shape of form. You can get this document from here.

More cmdlets added for managing storage accounts in this version.
3 new cmdlets added in this version for managing storage accounts. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

New-StorageService

Creates a new storage account in a subscription.

Remove-StorageService

Removes a storage account from a subscription.

Update-StorageService

Updates label and/or description of a storage account.

 

Version 2011.05.14.00

More cmdlets added for managing deployments in this version.
3 new cmdlets added in this version for managing hosted service deployments. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

Get-RoleInstanceCount

Gives information about the number of instances running for a single role or all roles in a deployment.

Get-RoleInstanceStatus

Gives information about the status of a single role instance, all instances in a single role or all instances for all roles in a deployment.

Set-RoleInstanceCount

Updates the number of deployed instances of a role in a deployment. This cmdlet can be used to scale up/down a hosted service.

 

Version 2011.04.20.00

Ability to specify configuration file location from blob storage when creating or updating a hosted service deployment.
In this version we've included the capability so that you can specify a configuration file for a hosted service deployment located in Windows Azure Blob storage. Prior to this the configuration file location can only be specified as a file location on the local computer. This change has been implemented in both "New-Deployment" and "Update-Deployment" cmdlets.

Bug fix with table data download
A bug was discovered in table download related cmdlets where those cmdlets were failing when an entity attribute contained invalid XML data. This bug is fixed in this release.

 

Version 2011.03.30.00

Windows Azure SDK 1.4 refresh
Recently Windows Azure SDK 1.4 was released. In this version we've refreshed the Windows Azure SDK assemblies required for "On Demand Transfer" and "Remote Diagnostics Management" features.

More cmdlets added for managing Azure affinity groups in this version.
3 new cmdlets added in this version for managing affinity groups. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

New-AffinityGroup

Creates a new affinity group in a subscription.

Remove-AffinityGroup

Removes an affinity group in a subscription.

Update-AffinityGroup

Updates label and/or description of an affinity group in a subscription.

Improvement in Backup-StorageAccount cmdlet
When taking partial or incremental backup of Windows Azure Tables data, we've made an improvement so that the cmdlet makes use of PartitionKey attribute instead of Timestamp attribute when the table which is being backed up is one of the Windows Azure Diagnostics Tables (WADWindowsEventLogsTable, WADPerformanceCountersTable, WADLogsTable, WADDiagnosticInfrastructureLogsTable, WADDirectoriesTable). This will result in faster and more efficient backup.

Improvement in Backup-Database cmdlet
We've changed Backup-Database cmdlet so that bcp.exe makes use of unicode encoding for downloading the data instead of character encoding by default. An additional parameter is defined (ApplyCharacterEncoding) to instruct bcp to use character encoding instead of unicode encoding.

 

Version 2011.03.05.00

Support for custom proxy server authentication.
In this version we've included for custom proxy server authentication. If you're behind a proxy server which requires you to provide a username/password to authentication, till the current version you were not able to use our cmdlets from behind proxy server. Starting this version you'll be able to do so. To do so, first you would need to execute "Set-ProxyServerConfiguration" and provide the proxy server address, proxy server port, and proxy server credentials (username, password and domain (optional)). Based on this information, this cmdlet will create an XML file which stores this information. All storage management and service management cmdlets will then make use of the settings stored in this file to connect to Windows Azure Storage Management service and Windows Azure Service Management service via the proxy server specified in this settings file.

Ability to copy and move multiple blobs from one blob container to another.
In this version we've included two new cmdlets to copy and move one or more blobs from one blob container to another in a storage account. These two cmdlets are "Copy-BlobContainer" and "Move-BlobContainer".

Ability to delete multiple blobs from a blob container.
In this version we've modified "Remove-Blob" cmdlet which can now also be used to remove multiple blobs from a blob container. Earlier, this cmdlet only allowed you to remove a single blob from a blob container.

Ability to set properties (Cache Control, Content Encoding, Content Language, and Content Type) on multiple blobs in a blob container.
In this version we've modified "Set-BlobProperty" cmdlet which can now also be used to set following properties on multiple blobs in a blob container: Cache Control, Content Encoding, Content Language, and Content Type. Earlier, this cmdlet only allowed you to set these properties of a single blob from a blob container. This cmdlet can be very helpful in a scenario where blobs in a blob container are available via Windows Azure CDN and you need to change the cache control property of all blobs in that blob container.

Ability to specify filter criteria when listing blobs in a blob container.
In this version we've modified "Get-Blob" cmdlet where now you can specify additional filter criteria to list only those blobs which match this filter criteria. You can filter blobs by blob type (Block blob or Page blob), blob's last modified date (filter blobs which are modified between certain date ranges), blob's size (filter blobs where size is between two values), and blob's file extension (filter blobs where name of the blob ends with particular string). Please note that same filtering options are also available in "Copy-BlobContainer", "Move-BlobContainer", "Remove-Blob" and "Set-BlobProperty" as well.

Ability to automatically take snapshot of a blob when uploading a file or folder.
In this version we've modified "Import-File" and "Import-Folder" cmdlets where now you can specify if the file already exists in the blob container, an attempt to take a snapshot of the blob should be made before overwriting that blob with the file being uploaded. This is helpful in scenarios where you want to maintain a history of same file.

 

Version 2011.02.04.00

Ability to perform partial backup of SQL Azure database.
In this version we've included a new feature which will allow you to perform partial backups of a SQL Azure database. With "Backup-Database" cmdlet, now you can specify a list of tables only which you want to be backed up (TablesToInclude parameter). For example, if you have 20 tables in your database and you only want to backup 4 tables, you can specify the names of these tables only (in [schemaname].[tablename] format) as a comma separated list and this cmdlet will only backup these 4 tables. Alternately, you can also specify a list of tables which you don't want to backed up (TablesToSkip parameter). For example, if you have 20 tables in your database and you don't want to backup 4 tables out of these, you can specify the names of these tables only (in [schemaname].[tablename] format) as a comma separated list and this cmdlet will skip backing up these 4 tables.

 

Version 2011.01.20.00

Bug fix with "Restore-StorageAccount" cmdlet for "DateTime" type entity attributes.
A bug was discovered in "Restore-StorageAccount" cmdlet. Because of this bug, the "DateTime" type entity attribute values in a table were offset based on the user's local computer time zone when uploaded in a storage account. This release takes care of this issue.

 

Version 2010.12.29.00

Bug fix with "Get-HostedServiceProperty" cmdlet when a hosted service was created by specifying location instead of an affinity group.
A minor bug was discovered in "Get-HostedServiceProperty" cmdlet when a hosted service was created by specifying a data center location instead of specifying an affinity group. This release takes care of this issue.

 

Version 2010.12.12.00

More cmdlets added for managing Azure hosted services in this version.
7 new cmdlets added in this version for managing Azure hosted services including the ability to reboot and reimage role instances. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

New-HostedService

Creates a new hosted service in a subscription.

Remove-HostedService

Removes a hosted service from a subscription.

Update-HostedService

Updates a hosted service's label and/or description.

Restart-Role

Reboots one or all role instances of a role in a deployment.

Restore-Role

Reimages one or all role instances of a role in a deployment.

Get-AzureDataCenterLocation

Gets a list of all Azure data centers available to a subscription.

Get-OSFamily

Gets information about available OS families associated with a subscription.

Important Note: If you've installed version 2010.11.29.00 or earlier, please uninstall it manually before installing the latest version.

 

Version 2010.11.29.00

1st commercial release of Azure Management Cmdlets
This is the first release of production version of Azure Management Cmdlets. Following table summarizes different versions (editions) of Azure Management Cmdlets:

 

Professional

Trial

 Pricing

$69.99 (USD)1

Free

 Access Windows Azure Storage

Yes

Yes

 Access Development Storage

Yes

Yes

 Manage Hosted Applications

Yes

Yes

 Manage Azure Diagnostics

Yes

Yes

 Manage SQL Azure Databases

Yes

Yes

 Backup/Restore Storage Accounts

Yes

Yes

 Validity Period

N/A

30 Days

Following table summarizes the volume pricing available for Azure Management Cmdlets:

Number of Licenses

Unit Price

% Savings

 1 - 5

$69.99 (USD)

0.00 %

 6 - 10

$66.50 (USD)

5.00 %

 11+

$63.00 (USD)

10.00 %

 

Version 2010.11.19.00

Bug fix with "Export-BlobContainer" and "Backup-StorageAccount"
In this version, we've fixed a bug which was causing the above mentioned cmdlets to hang indefinitely when a blob is not found in blob storage.

Improvement in "Get-Message" cmdlet
Get-Message cmdlet will now return message content in 3 different formats: as Bytes, Base64 encoded string and UTF8 encoded string.

Change in "New-Message" cmdlet
New-Message cmdlet now accepts a byte array as message body instead of a string till the previous version.

Improvement in "Get-BlobContainerSize" cmdlet
A new optional parameter named "BlobPrefix" added in "Get-BlobContainerSize" cmdlet to get total number of blobs and their size in a blob container where all blobs begin with a value specified by this BlobPrefix parameter.

 

Version 2010.11.15.00

More cmdlets added for managing Azure diagnostics in this version.
11 new cmdlets added in this version for managing Azure diagnostics. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

Get-ActiveTransfer

Gets information about on demand transfers currently in progress.

Get-CommonConfiguration

Gets the information about overall buffer quota for all diagnostics logs.

Get-DiagnosticConfiguration

Gets the diagnostics configuration for specified diagnostic log type.

Set-CommonConfiguration

Sets the overall buffer quota for all logs.

Set-FileBasedLog

Sets the diagnostics configuration settings for file based logs (IIS, IIS Failed Requests & Crash Dumps).

Set-InfrastructureLog

Sets the diagnostics configuration settings for Windows Infrastructure logs.

Set-PerformanceCounter

Sets the diagnostics configuration settings for Windows Azure Performance counters.

Set-WindowsAzureLog

Sets the diagnostics configuration settings for Windows Azure (Trace) logs.

Set-WindowsEventLog

Sets the diagnostics configuration settings for Windows Event logs.

Start-OnDemandTransfer

Starts on demand transfer of diagnostics data to Azure Storage.

Stop-ActiveTransfer

Stops currently active on demand transfers.

Included a WPF based Cmdlet Help Viewer.
We've added a WPF based cmdlet help viewer along with our application. This application is available under "CmdletHelpViewer" folder in the application installation directory. We've also made this application available on CodePlex as well, so that if you need to make any modifications you can download the code. More information about this utility is available here: http://www.cerebrata.com/Blog/post/Cerebrata-releases-a-WPF-based-Windows-PowerShell-Cmdlet-help-viewer-utility-on-CodePlex.aspx

Cmdlets names changed to match best practices followed by PowerShell community.
We've received very good feedback from the PowerShell community and based on the feedback, we've changed the names of some of the cmdlets. Essentially the name change is done to address two issues: Use of standard verbs and avoid the use of pluralized nouns in cmdlet names. Following table lists the cmdlets, either the names of which were changed or their functionality was merged with other cmdlets:

Storage Management - Tables & Entities

Old Name

New Name / Comments

Get-Entity

Get-EntityByPartitionKeyRowKey

Get-Entities

Get-Entity

Get-Tables

Get-Table

Download-Table

Export-Table

Remove-AllTables

Deleted the cmdlet (use Remove-Table with –All Parameter)

Storage Management - Queues & Messages

Old Name

New Name / Comments

Clear-Messages

Clear-Queue

Get-QueueProperties

Get-QueueProperty

Get-Queues

Get-Queue

Get-Messages

Get-Message (An additional "Mode" parameter is defined which can take a value of either "Peek" or "Get" to define the mode in which messages need to be fetched)

Get-ApproximateMessagesCount

Get-ApproximateMessageCount

Peek-Messages

Deleted the cmdlet (use Get-Message cmdlet with Mode parameter = "Peek")

Remove-AllQueues

Deleted the cmdlet (use Remove-Queue with –All Parameter)

Storage Management - Blob Containers & Blobs

Old Name

New Name / Comments

Upload-Folder

Import-Folder

Upload-Blob

Import-File

Snapshot-BlobContainer

Checkpoint-BlobContainer

Snapshot-Blob

Checkpoint-Blob

Set-BlobContainerAccessPolicies

Set-BlobContainerAccessPolicy

Download-BlobContainer

Export-BlobContainer

Download-Blob

Export-Blob

Get-BlobContainerAccessPolicies

Get-BlobContainerAccessPolicy

Get-BlobContainers

Get-BlobContainer

Get-Blobs

Get-Blob

Get-BlobProperties

Get-BlobProperty

Get-BlobSnapshots

Get-BlobSnapshot

Lease-Blob

Lock-Blob

Remove-AllBlobContainers

Deleted the cmdlet (use Remove-BlobContainer with –All parameter)

Subscription Management

Old Name

New Name / Comments

Get-AffinityGroup

Get-AffinityGroupProperty

Get-Certificates

Get-HostedServiceCertificate

Get-HostedServiceProperties

Get-HostedServiceProperty

Get-StorageKeys

Get-StorageKey

Get-StorageServiceProperties

Get-StorageServiceProperty

Get-AffinityGroups

Get-AffinityGroup

Get-HostedServices

Get-HostedService

Get-OSVersions

Get-OSVersion

Get-StorageServices

Get-StorageService

Upgrade-Deployment

Update-Deployment

SQL Azure Management

Old Name

New Name / Comments

Get-Databases

Get-Database

Get-DatabaseTables

Get-DatabaseTable

Diagnostics Management

Old Name

New Name / Comments

Clear-AzureEventLogs

Clear-AzureEventLog

Clear-AzureInfrastructureLogs

Clear-AzureInfrastructureLog

Clear-AzurePerfCounters

Clear-AzurePerfCounter

Clear-AzureTraceLogs

Clear-AzureTraceLog

 

Version 2010.10.28.00

Support for managing SQL Azure databases added in this version.
7 new cmdlets added in this version for managing SQL Azure databases. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

Backup-Database

Backs up a SQL Azure database using bcp.exe utility and saves the data on local computer. Optionally this cmdlet can also upload the data in blob storage as well after saving it to local disk.

Copy-Database

Copies one SQL Azure database to another in same database server.

Get-DatabaseInformation

Gets information about a SQL Azure database like maximum size of the database, current size of the database, database edition and database status.

Get-Databases

Gets information about all user databases in a SQL Azure database server like maximum size of the database, current size of the database, database edition and database status.

Get-DatabaseTables

Gets information about all user tables in a SQL Azure database like size of the table and number of rows in the table.

New-Database

Creates a new SQL Azure database.

Remove-Database

Removes a SQL Azure database.

 

Version 2010.10.19.00

5 new cmdlets added in this version.
5 new cmdlets added in this version. Please look at the table below for the list of new cmdlets added:

New-BlobContainerAccessPolicy

Adds a new blob container access policy for a blob container in a storage account.

Remove-BlobContainerAccessPolicy

Removes an existing blob container access policy for a blob container in a storage account.

Snapshot-BlobContainer

Takes a snapshot of all blobs in a blob container.

Restore-BlobContainer

Restores the contents of a blob container from XML created by execution of storage account backup and/or download blob container cmdlet.

Restore-Table

Restores the contents of a table from XML files created by execution of storage account backup and/or download table cmdlet.

Ability to specify certain blob container, tables & queues to skip for some operations.
In the following cmdlets, we've defined an additional parameter to specify names of blob containers, tables and queues to skip: Backup-StorageAccount, Restore-StorageAccount, Remove-AllBlobContainers, Remove-AllTables, Remove-AllQueues. This is especially useful when you do not want a particular object (table, queue or blob container) to be affected by the execution of the cmdlet. For example, when taking a backup of a storage account you may not want the diagnostics data to be backed up. You can specify those tables to be skipped while other tables will be backed up. Similarly, when removing all blob containers, you can instruct the cmdlet not to delete "$root" blob container.

Multiple tables concurrent backup.
Till now when tables are backed up using Backup-StorageAccount cmdlet, the data is downloaded one table at a time. In this version in Backup-StorageAccount cmdlet we've introduced a new parameter "MaxConcurrentTables" using which you can specify how many tables you want to download concurrently. By default the value of this parameter is the number of processors installed on the computer running this cmdlet.

Delete a deployment only if a deployment is in suspended state.
By default, delete deployment will delete a deployment regardless of it's state (Running or Suspended). The cmdlet will check the status of a deployment and if it finds it in running state, the cmdlet will suspend it first and then delete the deployment. In this version we've introduced an optional parameter which if instruct the cmdlet to delete a deployment only if it's in suspended state.

 

Version 2010.10.08.00

First Public Beta
This is the first release of the application in public beta. This version includes 80 cmdlets with full support for storage management, service management, storage account backup and restore.