Punching Clouds

Alright here it is.. for all of you vSphere PowerCLI fans out there, VMware education has a new two day instructor led class based on vSphere automation with PowerCLI. Many of you in the community have had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the very active, and proficient PowerCLI experts like LucD, Duncan, and others, now you’ll have an opportunity to learn how to get down and dirty with the vSphere PowerCLI. The class will help you fine tune your know knowledge and skill on the vSphere PowerShell framework in order to improve efficiency, manageability, and flexibility in your vSphere environments.

The class introduces the use of PowerCLI, and procedures to automate vSphere 4 functions and tasks. With the constant and rapid growth of virtual datacenters it’s always a good idea to know and understand how to use the tools that can help improve the efficiency required to manage this type of demand as well as manageability, availability, and flexibility. The target audience is vSphere 4 platform systems administrators. system architects, and also IT managers. Having experience with Windows, Linux operating systems, as well as scripting experience with Windows PowerShell, VBScript, Perl, UNIX shell, Python, and any other language with variables and control structures will be helpful.

The objectives are to provide a scenario where attendee will understand how to use PowerCLI to automate server management, configuration and other task as listed below:

• Automate VMware ESX configurations
• Automate the provisioning  of virtual machines
• Automate changes to virtual machine configurations
• Automate cluster operations
• Automate reporting

The listed tasks are functions which take a great deal of management efforts that can now be simplified, and executed with more efficiency.

VMware vSphere: Automation with vSphere PowerCLI Course Outline

Introduction to vSphere PowerCLI

• Define the main vSphere PowerCLI object
• Define the main commandlets in vSphere PowerCLI
• Connect to vSphere infrastructure
• Get help for commandlets

Automating ESX Host Configurations

• Automate creating of virtual switches on ESX hosts
• Automate configuration of datastores on ESX hosts

Virtual Machine Provisioning, Configuration, and Protection

• Automate creation of virtual machines
• Change virtual machines settings programmatically
• Run vSphere PowerCLI scripts in virtual machines
• Automate virtual machine protection

Automating Cluster Operations

• Automate virtual machines storage migrations
• Automate VMware vMotion
• Create a VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler/VMware High Availability cluster
• Automate cluster configuration
• Automate resource pool creation and configuration

Automating Reporting

• Automating reporting about virtual machines
• Automating reporting about ESX Hosts
• Automating reporting about clusters

You’ll spend about 60% of the class in a hands-on lab environment learning how to do all of the listed tasks. The class will definably get you thinking about many more task that you would like to automate, and now you’ll have a base understanding to get you started. Shout outs to the lead instructor of the class, who’s been involved with the development and pushing PowerShell for as long as I can remember, Joe Christie, AKA ” Gandalf the Grey”.  For Schedules and availability checkout the forever active VMware Education site.

Those of you who manage and administer medium, large, or even small VMware environments know that managing VMware’s virtual environments from the GUI requires lots of repetitive tasks, tasks that cuts into precious time that could be spent doing something that you like more than just work.

Whether you want to spend more time with your spouse and kids, boyfriend or girlfriend, or my personal favorite… getting loose with the boys at the local pub (Hell Yeah!!!!),  or whatever it is that you might be into,  VMware has some really awesome tools that can help you get some of the time back.  Well unless you’ve been working really hard or living under a massive rock, you should be aware of the VMware VI Toolkit for Windows.  This toolkit is based on Microsoft PowerShell and can do some really awesome things in a VMware environment to help you be more productive and efficient.

Don’t worry you wont have to learn PowerShell from scratch to use it. All you have to learn is how to use the VMware predefined functions that have been developed for the VI Tool Kit. As I listed in a previous post, VMware is currently re-branding their tools and applications so when VMware vSphere is released later this year, look for the new name of the toolkit which is now vSphere PowerCLI.

There are so many things you can do with this tool:

• Check virtual machines for VMotion compatibilities
• Check active connections to CD-ROM’s, floppies, virtual networks, etc.
• Check for virtual machines host locations
• Disconnect virtual devices
• Retrieve performance information from ESX Servers and Virtual Machines
• Perform bulk migrations

This are only a few of the many of the many fucntions that the tool can help you with.  I hight recommend visiting the VMTN community site and look at what is available to you.  There are always great posts from everyone, specially from Luc (this guy is a VI Toolkit/PowerShell genius, who even won a contest VMware was hosting last year)  The toolkit is currently being enhanced and more features are being added to it for the current version of vCenter and ESX Server as well as the upcoming vSphere products.  Below you can see some video demos by Carter Shanklin in which he shows how you’re going to get that precious time back when you use the VMware VI Toolkit (vSphere PowerCLI).  Enjoy. Carter Shanklin currently has a few more posting that are hosted at vimeo you should definitely check them out.