This chapter explained many different facets of automation in environments. You started by learning how to invoke programs for automation. You learned about the cmdlets start-process, invoke-item, and invoke-expression, and how they can be used to initiate actions on a system. Next, you understood how to chain multiple PowerShell scripts together in a child and parent relationship. You also learnt how to share functions, methods, and variables between multiple scripts, and how to invoke them between each other.

The chapter proceeded to dive into DSC and explained about its three phases, and the variety of resources you can apply to your configurations. You also learned how to detect a drifting configuration and how to restore it if it drifts from the desired state. In the next chapter, you will learn some of the recommended best practices for PowerShell. These best practices will help create efficiencies in your scripts and make your scripts portable between engineers.