As presented in the North Central Wisconsin SuperVMUG on November, 19, 2019.

1. TOOLS AND TIPS FOR VSPHERE
ADMINISTRATORS
North Central Wisconsin Super VMUG 2019 Edition
Anthony Hook

2. ANTHONY HOOK
Street Cred
@anthonyrhook
linkedin.com/in/anthonyhook/
anthonyrhook.com
VMware Practice Lead
Senior Systems Engineer

3. TOOLS ‘19
EDITION
• RVTools
• PowerCLI
• vCheck
• vDocumentation
• ESXTOP and VISUALESXTOP
• VMware Flings
• Community no I’m not calling you a tool

4. RVTOOLS
• Latest Version: 3.11.9 | May
26, 2019

5. RVTOOLS
Batch file – Scripting/Automation
Inventory environment
Compare before you make changes
Basic environment sizing

6. POWERCLI
• Network
• Storage
• VMs
• Guest OS
• More
• Over 500 cmdlets

7. POWERCLI
INSTALLATION
Available on Windows, Mac, or Linux
Install-Module -Name
VMware.PowerCLI -Scope
CurrentUser

8. USEFUL ONELINERS
• Enable SSH on all hosts
Get-VMHost | Foreach {Start-VMHostService -HostService ($_ |
Get-VMHostService | Where { $_.Key -eq "TSM-SSH"} )}
• Get NTP settings on all hosts
Get-VMHost | Sort Name | Select Name, @{N=”NTP”;E={Get-
VMHostNtpServer $_}}
• Get syslog information on all hosts
get-vmhost | Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -Name
Syslog.global.logHost
• Clobber unmount all CDROMs
Get-VM | Get-CDDrive | Set-CDDrive -NoMedia -Confirm:$false
It’s not that I’m lazy…

9. VCHECK

10. VCHECK
MODULAR COLLECTION OF
POWERCLI SCRIPTS
NOW WITH HTML
CONFIGURATOR
DAILY REPORT OF ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH

11. VCHECK
vCheck-
vSphere
vCheck-
AD
vCheck-
Exchange
vCheck-
NSX
https://vcheck.report/

12. VDOCUMENTATION
• vDocumentation provides a community-created
set of PowerCLI scripts that produce
infrastructure documentation of vSphere
environments in CSV or Excel file format.

13. VDOCUMENTATION
• Quick way to sort data
• Easily sort and find
inconsistencies in
configuration
• As-build documentation

14. ESXTOP AND
VISUAL
ESXTOP

15. ESXTOP
• SSH into host
• $ esxtop
• Keyboard navigation can be complex
• No additional tools needed
• VMware Fling -
https://flings.vmware.com/visualesxto
p
• Connect to vCenter or host
• GUI to click through
• Line charts, etc
VISUALESXTOP
COMPARISON

16. ESXTOP AND
VISUALESXTOP
Live connection to
ESX host or vCenter
Server
Flexible way of batch
output
Load batch output
and replay them
Multiple windows to
display different data
at the same time
Line chart for
selected performance
counters
Flexible counter
selection and filtering
Embedded tooltip for
counter description
Color coding for
important counters

17. VMWARE
FLINGS
Flings are apps and tools built by our
engineers and community that are intended
to be explored.
Some get productized (remember the HTML5
web client fling?)
“I have read and agree to the Technical
Preview License I also understand that Flings
are experimental and should not be run on
production systems.”

18. VMWARE FLINGS
vSphere Mobile
Client
vSAN Performance
Monitor
OS Optimization
tool
Horizon Session
Recording
VisualEsxtop
vSAN Hardware
Compatibility List
Checker

19. THE COMMUNITY
VMTN
Forums
VMU
G
Blogs
Twitter
Podcasts
vBrownBag

20. Q&A
What did I forget?