The frequency with which I interact with PowerShell 2 is ever increasing, and the product has become a useful method of reducing the time taken by particular tasks. I use PowerShell to rollout the latest versions of our applications, to create and amend both the structure and data of the database. PowerShell scripts can also be used towards monitoring of your SQL Servers.

You can find a variety of examples on PowerShell.com, the community for PowerShell People (http://powershell.com/cs/media/g/sql-server/default.aspx). I recommend having a look through the scripts as it will give you an idea of the potential of PowerShell.

Also well worth a read is an excellent overview piece by Robert Sheldon entitled Creating Windows PowerShell scripts to manage SQL Server 2008 instances (http://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid87_gci1344850_mem1,00.html?track=sy41)

Finally, there is another simple explanatory piece by Muthusamy Anantha Kumar which, as the title suggests, shows you how to ‘Check your SQL Server using Windows Powershell‘. http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3752866/Check-your-SQL-Server-using-Windows-PowerShell--Part-1.htm

I suggest becoming at least familiar with PowerShell, I can see its rise in popularity and increased usage continuing for some time to come.