Powercli on The IT Hollow

Before You Start PowerShell

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 14:21:36 +0000

PowerShell is an amazing tool that has limitless potential for Administrators, Engineers and Architects to automate routine tasks or do reporting on things their system management applications aren’t built for. Whenever there is a task to be done on multiple systems and it might need to be done more than once, I find myself reaching for this valuable tool.

The problem with PowerShell, just like a programming language is that it can be intimidating to get started. This post is to give you a basic understanding of what you’ll be getting into before you start running PowerShell cmdlets.

Get VMtools with PowerCLI 5.5 R2

Mon, 14 Jul 2014 13:01:45 +0000

VMtools is one of those nagging little pieces of software that always seems to be a pain to update. Back in my System Administration days, I commonly needed to report on which VMs had different versions of VMtools, and I have to admit, this was a more difficult property to find from my PowerCLI toolkit.

Take a look at the old way of finding my VMtools versions through PowerCLI.

VMware Drive Type Changer

Mon, 07 Jul 2014 13:33:09 +0000

There are a ton of features now that VMware has that may require either an SSD or a Non-SSD to be available in your ESXi host. Host Caching requires an SSD and Partner products like PernixData also require an SSD to be available on the host. VMware’s Virtual SAN (VSAN) currently require both an SSD and a Non-SSD to be available.

I’ve seen that many people want to try out these products in a lab environment, but don’t want to go out and buy another disk just to familiarize themselves with the product. In these cases, you can fool ESXi into thinking there is a device of the type you want. This can be done by using the esxcli commands on the host as documented here on VMware’s site.

End User VMware Console with PowerCLI

Mon, 11 Nov 2013 14:33:18 +0000

After watching Alan Renouf’s video about Open-VMConsoleWindow, I got excited about PowerShell again. In my current job I don’t get to do much scripting anymore but wanted to give building a form for PowerCLI a try. I’ve secretly wanted to be a programmer as long as I didn’t have to do it full time. :)

Using the video from Alan, and a Video from the LazyWinAdmin (included in this post) I created a fairly simple form that could run some commands on my home lab. My main goal was get a refresher on some PowerCLI and how to use Primal Forms.

Invoke PoSH

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:05:48 +0000

I was recently integrating Veeam Backups with HP Data Protector for a backup project when I found a great Powershell command that I didn’t know about. Invoke-Command -comp [computername] –scriptblock {script}

If you’re familiar with PSExec.exe this is an equivalent powershell command, but if you’re not, this command will allow you to execute something on another machine.

Veeam has the ability to call a script when a backup job completes, but I needed a different server to execute that script.

vSphere 5 AutoDeploy Basics

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:55:52 +0000

vSphere AutoDeploy always seemed like a lot of work to setup just to deploy a few VMware hosts, but in my current job I don’t setup hosts very often. If you are constantly deploying new hosts to get out in front of performance issues, or are building a new datacenter and deploying many hosts at once, AutoDeploy can be a great way to get up and running quickly.

Prerequisites

In order to use AutoDeploy, you’ll first need vSphere5, the AutoDeploy Install (which is on the vCenter Media), the vSphere5 Offline Bundle, PowerCLI, a DHCP Server and a TFTP server for starters.

Using PowerCLI for VMware Update Manager

Thu, 31 May 2012 13:29:08 +0000

You never know when you’ll need to script something and PowerCLI gives you the tools to do it. I decided to see if I could script some of the VMware Update Manager (VUM) tasks while I was reviewing section 5.2 of the VCAP5-DCA Beta Blueprint and found that the procedures were quite easy. My next thought was, “Why would I want to script this when I can use the GUI, and on top of that I can schedule scans and remediation already?” My answer was, “You never know.” Who knows when you’ll need to use the PowerCLI to accomplish a task. Maybe, you’re scripting something so someone else can run it without really knowing how to perform the task, or you’re trying to get a report, or who knows.

Path Selection Policy with ALUA

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:58:05 +0000

It’s important to understand how VMware ESXi servers handle connections to their associated storage arrays.

If we look specifically with fibre channel fabrics, we have several multipathing options to be considered. There are three path selection policy (PSP) plugins that VMware uses natively to determine the I/O channel that data will travel over to the storage device.

Fixed Path
Most Recently Used (MRU)
Round Robin (RR)

Let’s look at some examples of the three PSPs we’ve mentioned and how they behave. The definitions come from the vSphere 5 storage guide found below.

VMWorld 2011

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:42:15 +0000

VMworld 2011 was held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Over 25,000 attendees this year.

It was held in Las Vegas, but the sites and attractions didn’t take away from the event. Despite all the distractions that Las Vegas can provide, there was too much going on at VMworld to get caught up in the city.

My favorite part of VMworld was the Hands on Labs.

After signing up for the specific lab you wanted, you were ushered to your assigned desk. There were dual screen workstations setup at every desk and very straight forward instructions on how to complete the labs. These labs would get very in depth and would show you why and what was happening behind the scenes when you would perform your operations. I especially enjoyed the Netapp lab.