San Diego VMUG Oct 2009

vSphere PowerCLI
The best tool for automating vSphere
http://vmware.com/go/powercli

You need to automate!
You’re only one click away from a new VM, application or network.
Your virtual environment is not “out of control” – having to manage more than before is the new reality.

SDVMUG October 2009
A brief intro to PowerCLI.
Reporting with PowerCLI.
VM Provisioning and Lifecycle.
Storage Management.
Q + A.

What is PowerCLI?
PowerCLI is an automation tool.
Designed with the admin in mind.
You don’t need to spend weeks learning the API.
Based on Windows PowerShell.
Provides a modern and powerful scripting framework.

PowerCLI Supports:
ESX 3.0+
VirtualCenter/vCenter 2.0+
Any version of Windows that supports PowerShell.

PowerCLI Goals.
Power:
Automate any vSphere action.
Simplicity:
Any vSphere admin can read PowerCLI code and immediately understand what it does.

Why we automate.
Automation leads to uniformity.
Diversity is a phone call at 2 in the morning.
“Those who cannot automate are condemned to repeat themselves.”
-- Some Internet person.

People use PowerCLI to…
Clone hundreds of VMs from a template.
Perform mass migrations with Storage VMotion.
Easily integrate vSphere with other apps.
More than 500 examples on our community.

Demo
A 5 Minute Tour of PowerCLI.

Reporting
3 Types Of Reporting
Inventory
Get-* cmdlets
Events
Get-VIEvent
Performance
Get-Stat

Demo
Reporting

Just to repeat myself
3 Types Of Reporting
Inventory
Get-* cmdlets
Events
Get-VIEvent
Performance
Get-Stat

Some Interesting Stats

Storage Management
*-Datastore
*-ScsiLun
*-ScsiLunPath
Storage VMotion

Demo
Storage Management (Contains future features)

Storage: Conclusion
PowerCLI makes it easy to:
Provision storage.
Report on storage.
Diagnose storage problems.

VM Provisioning
New-VM
Get-Template
Get-OSCustomizationSpec
Set-VM

Demo
VM Provisioning and Lifecycle (Contains future features)

Provisioning: Conclusion
PowerCLI makes provisioning large numbers of assets very easy.

Coming Soon
Configure virtual switch teaming, failover, etc.
Thin provisioning.
Convert existing or provision new.
Guest management.
Copy files in and out.
Roles and Permissions.
Duplicate between vCenter instances.

Conclusion
PowerCLI is extremely powerful and useful.
It’s getting better all the time.
It’s free and easy to install.
This is a must-know tool for any vSphere admin.

Learn More.
Download at http://vmware.com/go/powercli
Join our community.
Subscribe to the PowerCLI blog.
http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell
Extensions at http://codeplex.com/vitoolkitextensions

Questions?
Download today: http://vmware.com/go/powercli