With the beta of Dynamics CRM 2011, Microsoft offers the ability to script deployment management tasks with PowerShell.

The server role ‘Deployment Tools’ contains a set of PowerShell cmdlets to script Deployment Manager tasks.

After you have installed the Deployment Tools role you are able to add the Dynamics CRM PowerShell-Snap-In to your PowerShell session.

To use the cmdlets you have to enter following command into a PowerShell console, which adds the PowerShell-Snap-In to your active session.

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Crm.PowerShell

After this the CRM Snap-In will be listed when you enter this command

Get-PSSnapIn

Make sure that the result contains

Name : Microsoft.Crm.PowerShell
PSVersion : 2.0
Description : A Windows PowerShell snap-in containing cmdlets that manage components of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Now, you can view the cmdlets which are defined in the Snap-In with following command

Get-Command -Module Microsoft.Crm.PowerShell

At the moment of writing this post, following cmdlets are available

Disable-CrmOrganization
Disable-CrmServer
Edit-CrmOrganization
Enable-CrmOrganization
Enable-CrmServer
Get-CrmCertificate
Get-CrmDefaultOrganization
Get-CrmDeploymentAdministrator
Get-CrmEtmSettings
Get-CrmOrganization
Get-CrmServer
Get-CrmSetting
Get-CrmThrottleSettings
Import-CrmOrganization
New-CrmDeploymentAdministrator
New-CrmOrganization
Remove-CrmCertificate
Remove-CrmDeploymentAdministrator
Remove-CrmOrganization
Remove-CrmServer
Set-CrmCertificate
Set-CrmEtmSettings
Set-CrmSetting
Set-CrmThrottleSettings
Update-CrmOrganization

This is a great enhancement for managing a crm deployment. You can speed up your administrative tasks, if you add this Snap-In to your profile. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd315342.aspx