Azure PowerShell - Questions & Answers

1. What is Azure PowerShell?
Azure PowerShell is a module that provides cmdlets to manage Azure with Windows PowerShell. The Azure Powershell 1.0.1 MSI is hosted on Github (and not on a Microsoft domain as may be expected). Windows PowerShell scripts are saved as ps1 files. However, if a file is saved as a psm1 file, it can be treated as a module. The functions defined in the psm1 file become the cmdlet names used.

2. How can you know if Azure PowerShell is installed on a machine?
To see all available Windows PowerShell modules, the command is:
get-module -listavailable
See if Azure PowerShell is included. To know the PowerShell version installed on a machine, try -
$psversiontable

3. How can you find the version of Azure PowerShell module installed on a machine?
To check the version of a module in your PowerShell environment, the command is:
(Get-Module <module name>).Version

So to know the version of Azure PowerShell module installed on a machine, use:
(Get-Module Azure).Version

4. How to know what cmdlets are part of the Azure PowerShell module?
To list all the cmdlets that are part of the Azure PowerShell module, run this command:
Get-Command -Module Azure

5. What are the other software that Azure PowerShell module depends on?
Azure PowerShell requires PowerShell 3+ and .Net 4.5. A small number of cmdlets that control the compute emulator require Azure SDK. Other dependencies are generally shipped with the modules themselves.

6. Which authentication techniques do Azure PowerShell cmdlets support?
The Azure PowerShell cmdlets support two authentication techniques: AAD and self-signed X.509 certificates. AAD authentication can be used for both the classic Azure Service Management (ASM) mode and the new Azure Resource Manager (ARM) mode of the Azure cmdlets. Certificate authentication can be used only for ASM mode.  Azure Resource Manager does not support client certificate authentication (though it does support certificate authentication for Service Principal)