Frank Lesniak
Microsoft Platform and Cybersecurity Ninja | M365 Consulting Team Lead | PowerShell | Windows | Sr. Cybersecurity & Enterprise Technology Architect at West Monroe
River Forest, Illinois, United States
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Frank Lesniak is a Sr. Cybersecurity & Enterprise Technology Architect at West Monroe with nearly 20 years of experience leading consulting engagements involving Microsoft infrastructure technology. His expertise spans modern cloud systems like Azure, Microsoft 365, and Entra ID to classic platforms like Windows Server, Active Directory, and SQL Server. His recent focus has been on Microsoft platform cybersecurity and automating technical processes using PowerShell. In his role, Frank establishes technical project methodologies, leads teams, automates associated processes, and creates internal software products at West Monroe and in the open-source community.
Frank's versatility also includes:
- Microsoft 365
- Process automation, Windows/Windows Server administration, and configuration management (Intune, SCCM)
- Linux (Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu) and macOS (FreeBSD)
- Resilient systems, disaster recovery, virtualization, containers
- Federated authentication (OpenID Connect, OAuth2, SAML), public key infrastructure
- Industry experience: banking, finance, healthcare, high-tech/software, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, public utilities, and more
At West Monroe, Frank leads the Workplace Collaboration (Modern Work) competency, heading a 45-member team specializing in:
- Executing M&A-related divestitures and mergers (efficiently migrating identities, email, documents, telephony, and workstations between environments)
- Building award-winning intranet and employee experience portals
- Fortifying Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Azure, and Windows endpoint security (including the Defender suite)
- Modernizing endpoint management with Microsoft's Modern Management framework (Intune, Windows Autopilot, JAMF for macOS, Defender for Endpoint)
Frank's role includes technical leadership through product development and presentations on PowerShell and identity/access management. He manages the Microsoft partnership and is an employee experience manager for the Technology & Experience practice.
In the community, Frank serves as a director on the board of DuPage Animal Friends (DAF), a non-profit supporting DuPage County Animal Services (DCAS). As DuPage County's sole open-admission animal shelter, DCAS depends on DAF for crucial care, specialized therapy, and community programs, given that it's not tax-funded. Frank also leads DAF's Technology Committee.
Engaged in the tech community, Frank frequently speaks at conferences and user groups, is a published author, and publishes open-source code.
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Cutting Through the Hype: Evaluating the Impact of Copilot+ PCs on Sysadmins
Copilot+ PCs integrate neural processing units (NPUs), unlocking device-local AI capabilities that promise to optimize machine learning or other AI-related applications.
But what does this mean for sysadmins? Can we harness NPUs for script development or other tasks? What admin controls exist? How can we detect and monitor NPUs?
In this session, we'll demystify Copilot+ PCs and NPUs, compare them between Windows and macOS (which have had NPUs since the M1 processor), and, through live demos, explore their impact on sysadmin tasks. You'll leave with actionable insights!
Empowering Teams: Transforming Your Organization with a PowerShell and Toolmaking Community
This session will take you on a journey through creating West Monroe’s internal PowerShell and toolmaking interest group. From identifying the need for a collaborative automation community to establishing a thriving space for innovation and learning, we’ll share the key steps, challenges, and successes that have shaped our experience.
You'll learn how we:
- Identified the Need: Recognized gaps in knowledge sharing, skill development, and tool standardization within the organization.
- Garnered Support: Secured buy-in from leadership and peers by demonstrating the value of a centralized group focused on automation and efficiency.
- Fostered Collaboration: Built an inclusive community where members share scripts, discuss best practices, and work together on real-world automation challenges.
- Sustained Momentum: Maintained engagement through regular meetings, hands-on workshops, and showcasing group achievements.
We’ll also discuss the benefits of having an internal working group, including:
- Increased cross-team collaboration and communication.
- Improved efficiency through shared tools and scripts.
- Greater employee empowerment and professional growth through peer learning.
- Enhanced problem-solving with diverse perspectives that contribute to automation projects.
- A more innovative and proactive organizational culture.
Finally, we’ll tackle common obstacles such as maintaining member engagement and overcoming resistance to change, providing strategies to ensure your community thrives.
Whether you're looking to build a PowerShell interest group in your organization or inspire your teams to think collaboratively, this talk will equip you with actionable insights and practical ideas to get started. Join us to discover how a community-driven approach can transform your teams' workflows, foster continuous learning, and drive innovation across your organization. Take the first step towards empowering your teams today!
PowerShell Everywhere: Unleashing the Power of Cross-Platform Scripting
Discover how to unleash PowerShell's full potential across diverse environments—Linux, macOS, Raspberry Pi, ARM devices, containers, and cloud platforms like Azure Cloud Shell. We'll delve into the operating systems and distributions that PowerShell supports, discover unique cross-platform behaviors, and explore non-traditional computing environments. This talk is perfect for PowerShell professionals eager to broaden their scripting horizons.
We'll present rapid-fire demos:
- Exploring Azure Cloud Shell for cloud management.
- Running PowerShell inside Docker containers.
- Comparing PowerShell behaviors on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
- Showcasing PowerShell on Raspberry Pi, which is helpful for IoT projects and home automation.
We'll also discuss PowerShell on ARM-based Windows devices, highlighting what makes these platforms unique compared to traditional x86-64 Windows.
Throughout the talk, we'll share tips and tricks and provide plenty of "leave-behind" scripts—including a comprehensive, cross-platform, backward-compatible system inventory script—to help you apply your new knowledge immediately. You'll gain practical insights and a deeper appreciation of PowerShell's cross-platform capabilities.
Finally, we'll cover some practical tips to help you write better cross-platform and backward-compatible code. You'll leave the session with an understanding of how to set up your VSCode environment to identify PowerShell code that won't work on Linux or macOS or isn't backward compatible with previous versions of PowerShell.
Designed for intermediate PowerShell users, this session will inspire you to harness PowerShell's full potential, whether managing cloud infrastructure, automating home projects, experimenting with diverse hardware, or creating cross-platform or backward-compatible tools. Don't miss this opportunity to elevate your scripting skills and expand your capabilities!
PowerShell Meets Wall Street: Automating Stock Trading
Come to our happy hour session to explore automated stock trading with PowerShell. We'll demystify algorithmic trading & show how PowerShell automates trading tasks, connects with APIs, and handles data.
Set up a development environment, fetch real-time stock data, & try a simple strategy like a moving average crossover in a live demo. This session is perfect for intermediate PowerShell users looking for a new challenge or wanting to watch us lose money.
Note: This presentation is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Trading stocks involves significant risk
Supercharge Your PowerShell: Harnessing ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot for Advanced Script Authoring
Elevate your PowerShell script development by integrating powerful AI tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot. In this intermediate-level session, you'll discover how to leverage these AI assistants to simplify routine tasks, accelerate script development, and reduce errors while maintaining high-quality code.
We’ll begin by exploring the functionalities of ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, demonstrating how they can seamlessly augment your PowerShell script authoring. Then, you’ll learn how to set up and configure these AI tools within your development environment, ensuring a smooth integration process.
The heart of the session features a live demonstration where we tackle a real-world automation scenario—such as generating comprehensive reports from system logs or managing user accounts—with the assistance of AI.
Beyond the demo, we’ll share advanced tips and best practices for optimizing AI-assisted script writing, including techniques for starting scripts from simple prompts, debugging code, and automating portions of script writing to save time. Furthermore, we delve into advanced optimization techniques, empowering you to fine-tune your newly AI-assisted scripts for maximum performance, reliability, and scalability.
By the end of the session, you'll have actionable insights, and a suite of resources designed to seamlessly integrate AI into your PowerShell projects. Whether you aim to enhance your scripting prowess, minimize manual interventions, or explore cutting-edge automation solutions, this talk equips you with the knowledge and tools necessary to elevate your PowerShell capabilities to unprecedented heights.
Source Control and Continuous Deployment... for a Spreadsheet?!
It is terrible, and we hate it, but let's be real: sometimes Excel spreadsheets support business-critical processes :(
When a spreadsheet becomes business-critical, especially for infrequently edited ones, it is nice to get it into source control. It is easy to imagine the benefits - for example, detailed change tracking (i.e., who changed what cell and when, and what was the reason?).
But Excel spreadsheets are binary files, not text-based source control - so getting detailed change tracking is not particularly straightforward!
This session will explore this wacky use case for source control and get the speaker's Chicago native plants "database" under proper source control to unlock community contributions!
Mastering Data Insights: Zero-Shot Classification with OpenAI and PowerShell
Are you facing the challenge of making sense of vast amounts of unstructured data from user inputs, like survey responses or product reviews? You're not alone. This session is designed for anyone grappling with the complexities of data analysis, whether you're a sysadmin, developer, or IT professional.
We'll introduce you to the innovative integration of OpenAI's embeddings and PowerShell. This combination offers a robust data classification, anonymization, and interpretation solution. Our focus is not on turning you into a data scientist - instead, we aim to equip you with practical techniques and insights that can be applied across various roles and industries.
Expect a journey through user-friendly explanations of complex concepts like k-means clustering and data scrubbing. We'll illustrate these ideas with real-world scenarios, showing how they can be applied to your unique challenges. Whether new to these terms or looking to refine your skills, this session will provide valuable knowledge.
By the end of our time together, you'll understand these advanced techniques and be ready to implement them in your context, today or in the future. Join us to unlock the potential of your data, gain crucial insights, and elevate your professional capabilities.
Presented at the PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2024; link to the recording: https://youtu.be/XJXtxXtMIbE?si=_gFsKsc2slBeidbP
PowerShell Saturday North Carolina 2024
I led a presentation and "co-piloted" another two presentations.
The presentation I led was "PowerShell Everywhere: Unleashing the Power of Cross-Platform Scripting"
Abstract:
Join us for an engaging session on running PowerShell in some of the most exciting and diverse environments. We’ll cover supported OSes and distributions, delve into the unique behaviors of PowerShell on Linux and macOS, and explore its functionality on Raspberry Pi and ARM devices. This talk promises a comprehensive tour of PowerShell’s capabilities across platforms, from Azure Cloud Shell to the rarely seen Itanium. This talk is perfect for tech enthusiasts or PowerShell professionals eager to broaden their scripting horizons.
We’ll start with an overview of the OSes and distributions that support PowerShell, including various Linux distributions. Next, we’ll explore Azure Cloud Shell, a browser-accessible shell experience that integrates PowerShell and Azure CLI for cloud management.
We’ll compare how PowerShell behaves on Linux and macOS compared to Windows, highlighting key differences and practical insights. The talk will also feature PowerShell on Raspberry Pi, covering both Raspberry Pi OS and Windows versions, showcasing its versatility in IoT projects and home automation.
Additionally, we’ll discuss PowerShell on ARM32 and ARM64 Windows devices, including the old-school Surface 2 and newer ARM64 hardware. We will touch on a few items that make these platforms exciting and different from traditional PowerShell on x86-64 Windows. We’ll even include a segment on PowerShell’s functionality on Itanium processors, offering a unique historical perspective.
We’ll share fun facts, tips, and tricks throughout the talk. Attendees will leave with a deeper appreciation of PowerShell’s cross-platform prowess and practical knowledge they can apply in their environments.
We designed this session for seasoned PowerShell users and newcomers eager to explore its expansive capabilities. Whether managing cloud infrastructure, automating home projects, or experimenting with diverse hardware, this talk will inspire and equip you to harness PowerShell’s full potential in any setting.
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The first presentation I co-piloted was "Mastering Server Management with PowerShell and Redfish Protocol"
Abstract:
Unlock the capabilities of PowerShell as a server management utility using the open-source Redfish protocol, a standard in servers since 2020. In this session, we will use PowerShell to remotely manage server settings, adjust boot sequences, and monitor health indicators. Rather than broadly overviewing data center operations, we will dive into practical, scriptable commands to streamline your server management tasks.
We’ll start with an introduction to the Redfish protocol and its integration with modern servers, then will cover using PowerShell for tasks like inventory management and health monitoring. Through focused, demo-driven examples, you’ll learn how to effectively inventory, monitor, and manage physical servers using PowerShell and Redfish.
Key takeaways include:
- Utilizing PowerShell scripts for remote server management.
- Practical tips for adjusting server settings and boot sequences.
- Methods for monitoring server health indicators using Redfish.
This session offers hands-on experience with scriptable techniques that enhance server operations and control. Designed for PowerShell enthusiasts aiming to automate and improve their server management workflows, this talk provides the tools and knowledge to optimize server management capabilities.
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The second presentation I co-piloted was "Mastering EUC (End-User Chaos) and Service Desk Tickets using PowerShell"
Abstract:
Expect a journey through user-friendly explanations of complex concepts like k-means clustering and data scrubbing. We’ll illustrate these ideas with real-world scenarios (for example, the analysis of service desk tickets or survey data), showing how they can be applied to your unique challenges and user base.
We’ll review the custom scripts we’ve developed for data categorization. These scripts allow you to extract unique insights from a cluster of data that would otherwise require hours of manual analysis to determine common issues.
By the end of our time together, you’ll understand these advanced data analysis techniques and be ready to implement them in your context, today or in the future. Join us to unlock the potential of your data, gain crucial insights, and elevate your professional capabilities.
PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2024 Sessionize Event
Automation + DevOps Summit Sessionize Event
Chicago PowerShell Conference
I presented one session:
Presentation Title: Rapid Function Development
Presentation Abstract:
When you are first starting with PowerShell, determining when and how to get your code into a function quickly can be challenging. Let’s talk about when code should be moved into a function, and how to build scalable, maintainable code quickly.
In this talk, we will cover some “gut checks” to know when it might be time to move your code into a function, how to build a scalable, maintainable functional library using dot sourcing, and how to “scaffold” functions using repeatable patterns to support rapid development.
Attendees can expect to learn the criteria for when it is appropriate to move their code to a function. And when they do move their code, the speakers will share some function “scaffolding” (templates) for good performance, scale, and compatibility. Attendees will also learn how to create a function library and dot-source scripts to make their code more reusable and maintainable.
April Chicago PowerShell Users Group (CPUG) Virtual Meetup
Presented two sessions:
Session #1:
Presentation Title: Exotic PowerShell: Running PowerShell in Interesting Places
Presentation Abstract:
You may have heard of Azure Cloud Shell – which allows you to run PowerShell within a Linux container hosted in Azure. But there are lots of other cool places to run PowerShell: macOS, ARM computers, Raspberry Pis, and even Frank’s arcade machine. In this quick demo, Frank will show off some of these “exotic” ways to put PowerShell to work.
Session #2:
Presentation Title: Making Copies of Objects in PowerShell – More Difficult Than You Think!
Presentation Abstract:
$x = $y; $x is now a copy of $y, right? Nope!
Ever try and make a copy of an object in PowerShell and then write changes to the copy, only to find out that those changes messed up the original object? You are not alone. PowerShell uses the equals sign to assign a pointer to an object, not to make a copy of it as you might expect. In this talk, you will see why copying objects in PowerShell is very confusing and unexpectedly tricky, and knowing how to use backward-compatible and reliable code for dealing with this problem.
Frank will share code written to allow you to copy objects in PowerShell reliably; he will give a demonstration of it in this talk.
1st Quarter Chicago PowerShell User Group
Presented one session:
Presentation Title: Get Started with PowerShell (Beginner Session)
Presentation Abstract:
In this 10-minute lightning talk, Frank will show five things that everyone needs to know to be successful in learning PowerShell.
ChiCyberCon (Formerly Known as ForenSecure) 2014
I presented two sessions:
Session #1:
Presentation Title: Practical AD Security - How to Secure Your Active Directory Network Without Breaking It
Presentation Abstract:
IT professionals everywhere strive to secure their network, but it can be a daunting task. Luckily, Microsoft provides some boilerplate templates to get you started. In this session, Frank will demonstrate how to get started with Microsoft's security templates, and give you some tips on settings that he frequently needs to change in customer environments to maintain compatibility with existing applications or common configurations.
Session #2:
Presentation Title: Implementing a Modern, Effective PKI on Windows Server 2012 R2
Presentation Abstract:
The infrastructure that deploys and manages digital certificates, known as a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), is often the center for cryptography in an organization. It is also in service for 10+ years, which means that one must carefully consider design options before implementation. In this presentation, Frank will cover modern standards for cryptography, how they apply to a Microsoft PKI infrastructure, and share recommendations based on he has seen in the field.
Frank Lesniak
Microsoft Platform and Cybersecurity Ninja | M365 Consulting Team Lead | PowerShell | Windows | Sr. Cybersecurity & Enterprise Technology Architect at West Monroe
River Forest, Illinois, United States
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