Archive for December, 2009
PowerCLI: Copying Advanced Host Configuration
Dec 20th
I was asked in my script list comments if there was a way to copy the ESX host advanced configuration from one host to every other host in the cluster, thankfully PowerCLI gives us some nice cmdlets to work with that make this task very easy…
Get-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration and Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration
So first of all lets list the current advanced configuration of one of our hosts using Out-GridView:
VESI & PowerGUI PowerPack V3
Dec 18th
The popularity of this PowerPack never ceases to amaze me, as if it wasn’t enough to have more than 2500 downloads already it was also mentioned by the great Eric Sloof at the recent Dutch VMUG, check out a video of the session here (if you speak Dutch) or check out his slide deck here.
So, I have been working on V3 of the PowerPack and have just finished the final touches.
What’s new ?
To be honest I cant remember everything that is new but as you can see from the left hand node list there are a fair few new nodes which may help in your day to day admin life.
I have not only added my own enhancements but also included a bunch of bug fixes, (thanks Arnim and Luc) and also included some other scripts from Arne over at ICT-Freak.nl
I have re-organised some of the nodes so when you add the latest PowerPack you will receive a prompt like the below:
Make sure you click yes to re-organise the nodes into the new areas.
I have also made a dependency on PowerCLI V4.0 Update 1 so if you do not have that version installed then please install it before upgrading to the latest PowerPack, you will not need vSphere 4.0 U1 as PowerCLI 4.0U1 is backward compatable.
In the latest version of PowerCLI VMware have made the connection methods a million times better, if you look at the code you will now see how easy it is to paste your new code into the nodes and create your own enhancements.
So what’s next for V4 ? More of the same great scripts, more enhanced nodes, a move towards more actions and less nodes, and I am also thinking about opening this up as a community project, we can all add our own scripts to the PowerPack as a community effort and make this THE ULTIMATE FREE TOOL to have when administering or consulting VMware systems, express your interest via the comments please.
If your not a scripter but would like to see something in the PowerPack to make your life easier also please let me know via the comments.
Use the automatic update feature or download the new version now from below.
vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide – Available in Europe
Dec 14th
The vSphere Quick Start Guide is doing well, I don’t think we will quite take the Christmas Number 1 best seller slot but still, thanks to anyone who has purchased the book so far and a bigger thanks if you have left us a review or published a blog post, its always good to hear how people are finding the book.
After the release I had a few questions about when it would be released on the UK Amazon site, it seams that apart from sharing their name, these two sites do not have anything to do with each other, one would assume that once it was published on the US site it would soon make its way over to the UK site, that doesn’t seam to be the case.
Do not despair, we have now released it via LULU, a self publication site, you can now purchase the book and have it delivered very quickly from here for just…
£12.53 – no I am not missing a 0, that is correct, what a bargain price !
Local Plugin Creator
Dec 8th
Recently VMware are adding everything into vCenter to be centrally managed, apart from my PowerCLI prompt I think the vSphere Client is the second most launched application on my computer !
Now wouldn’t it be useful if you could add your other management interfaces into the vCenter Client, even if the vendor hasn’t created a plugin…
One App to rule them all, One App to find them,
One App to bring them all and in the vSphere Client bind them.
Sorry, couldn’t resist it. More >
PowerCLI Quick Reference Guide
Dec 4th
Way back in the days of the “Virtual Infrastructure Toolkit” I released a quick guide for people to keep on their desk or in their pocket, the idea was it would give you enough information about the VITK whilst still being on a single (double sided) page.
Well things have moved on and the days of the VITK are no more, now we have PowerCLI and aren’t we pleased !
So to keep us up to date and so that we still have a quick reference, I have updated the single sheet to include all the new cmdlets and I also threw in a few other resources too.
Please download, print off and fold, keep it with you to help with your day to day usage of PowerCLI (or is that just me ?!?). More >
Exploring the PowerCLI cmdlets – Get-NicTeamingPolicy Part 2
Dec 2nd
In my previous post “Exploring the PowerCLI cmdlets – Get-NicTeamingpolicy” I showed you how to output some great looking information for vSwitches which detailed all the information we may ever need to know, so whilst on the same cmdlet lets look at PortGroups, these have the same type of settings and the same cmdlet also works against a PortGroup object, as before we can display this information with a single one liner… More >
Boot from Paravirtualized SCSI Adapter
Dec 2nd
From vSphere U1, VMware now support booting from a Paravirtualized SCSI adapter, why would you want to do this ? Well why not, check out the VMware Performance Blog where VMware have tested this adapter and shared their results.
VMware were able to achieve 350,000 I/O operations per second on a single vSphere host (ESX 4.0) and 3 virtual machines. From their findings the VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapter was able to achieve 12% more throughput with 18% less CPU cost compared to the LSI virtual adapter… Now you see why we should use it !
So in trying to test this the first thing I did was move one of my current virtual machines onto the adapter by clicking “edit settings” go to “SCSI controller 0” and click the change type button, from there you can select “VMware Paravirtual”. More >
Exploring the PowerCLI cmdlets – Get-NicTeamingPolicy
Dec 1st
One of the new cmdlets from PowerCLU 4.0 Update 1 is Get-NicTeamingPolicy, so what does this do ?
It retrieves the Nic teaming policies of the specified virtual switches and virtual port groups, obviously !
So how can we use this cmdlet ?
Well, as it details the teaming policies of either a virtual switch or a portgroup then we will need to give it a…virtual switch or a portgroup, so how do we do this, lets try a one-liner:
Get-VMHost | Get-VirtualSwitch | Get-NicTeamingPolicy
This will do as it says on the tin, get a list of the hosts, for each of these it will get a list of virtual switches attached to the hosts and then list their nic teaming policies, the output is as so:
