In the last few years, I've done a few talks at various conferences on the integration of SMO (SQL Server Management Objects) and Powershell. My friend and co-author of the SQL Server 2005 books, Dan Sullivan, got me into using Powershell and SMO and has written quite a number of excellent blog entries and articles about it. Because SMO is just another loadable .NET library, they're a perfect fit. For TechEd US, I even wrote a simple powershell provider that makes SQL Server look at a file system (NavigationCmdletProvider through the database objects), and showed the code.
I'll be doing another chalktalk at TechEd Developers, Europe, next week… with a twist. A few weeks ago, I'd been informed of plans to include a Powershell NavigationCmdletProvider provider that's shipped as part of SQL Server 2008! Really! It won't be in the very next CTP (due soon, according to the original official CTP schedule from long ago), but, barring untowed circumstances, it will be in the final product.
So if you have any interest in SQL Server and Powershell, I'll see you in Barcelona at the chalktalk. It will be a good time, promise.