Recently there have been some great webcasts on PowerCLI, I wanted to make sure that these were available for everyone to watch. Firstly I will start off with the BrownBag Webcasts, if you don’t attend these I highly recommend you check them out, the BrownBag Webcasts were started by Cody Bunch and are a weekly webcast which goes through various VMware products and technologies in around 1hr (sometimes they run over).
Two that I would like to point out are related to PowerCLI.
PowerCLI 101
This webcast goes through an introduction to PowerCLI and PowerShell itself showing great resources and learning tips. This webcast was presented by Glenn Sizemore who’s blog can be found here.
PowerCLI 201
This webcast was presented by Jake Robinson and Josh Atwell and takes PowerCLI one step further, expanding on the knowledge of the PowerCLI 101 BrownBag to give you some great tips and resources.
Luc’s first webcast is called “VMware PowerCLI – First Steps” and is well worth watching if your learning or thinking about learning PowerCLI.
Luc is also due to present a second webcast on April 25th, this will take your PowerCLI learning one step further to being an automation wizard, to sign up for this and have the chance to ask questions live make sure you follow this link.
Get notification of new blog postings and more by following VMware PowerCLI on Twitter: @PowerCLI
Would you like to win access to the fantastic PowerCLI Course by Trainsignal ?
Would you like to help shape the future of PowerCLI ?
Read on….
As announced at VMworld 2011, we are currently in the process of extending the PowerCLI capabilities to automate vCloud Director (vCD) configuration, as part of this we would like to focus the users of PowerCLI and vCloud Director and allow you to have your say.
To do this we have put together 4 simple questions to get your feedback.
Please select the option that best fits your desired user experience for each of the questions.
To thank you for filling in this survey, we will select one of you at random to take the PowerCLI training course online on the TrainSignal website.
**Optional. Please note that we will only use your email to contact the winner, no spam will be sent and no record of this address will be kept for future reference.**
Folks, we are sorry to say offer is now over. We will look into expanding this offer in the future but as of today we are no longer shipping the PowerCLI Fan Packs.
Thanks to everyone who registered for the Free PowerCLI Fan Pack. We will be shipping your PowerCLI Fan Packs within the next 1 – 3 weeks.
We have had many requests for the PowerCLI Lab Manual – Please see attached in Word. We also plan on revising the Lab for VMworld 2011. Please let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvements.
Just wanted to share our trip report on our first ever Workshop in London. A huge thanks to Alan R. and Paul N. for helping us put this together. Please visit http://www.virtu-al.net/ for presentations and MP3 recordings.
Theme: Managing Large Scale vSphere environments using APIs / PowerCLI.
Background:
We wanted to maximize our Engineering and PM time out of office by visiting strategic locations en-route to VMworld EMEA. London / Financial sector has a very high rate of PowerCLI user base.
Goals / Objective:
Share best practices when managing large scale vSphere environments using the vSphere APIs / PowerCLI
Audience:
vSphere Administrators, Architects managing large vSphere environments in London
Some comments from our attendees
“I like the technical depth of the presenters. Being able to put questions directly to the chaps involved in product development was a great opportunity and I learnt a lot. Could we have more sessions like this?
“A useful and well balanced set of sessions. Even though I then went to VMworld, Copenhagen and could have seen most of these sessions, having them in a package was really good.
“Really impressive day – for those of not able/willing to attend vmworld it was a great taster
“Great to see some relevant technical content being advocated by VMware – more please!”
Total Attendees:
60 – 70 attendees – (Pretty impressive on such short notice – 10 days)
Key Take Aways –
Overall event ran without a hitch. We had some great interaction with our users and were very impressed by the questions posed to our engineering teams. In the future we need to perhaps allocate more time to the ESX TOP session and have more hands on demos. We should also better plan on food / snacks – we missed the morning Coffee.
Chamber of Commerce Central London
Alan R with some last minute changes to his presentation
This is the first ever PowerCLI Sticker released.
Short Videos
Ravi describes event
Questions and Answers during sessions
Agenda and Speakers
Exploring VMware APIs
Level: Beginner
Length: 60 minutes
Developers have a broad set of options to integrate with VMware platforms to monitor and manage virtualization. This session will provide the overall direction of VMware APIs, describe opportunities for tighter integration with vSphere 4.1 and vCenter 4.1. This is a must-attend session for new product managers or developers to VMware platforms. For those familiar with VMware platforms, the session will provide a refresher course as well as a summary of enhancements to the APIs in the 4.1 release.
Speaker: Preetham Gopalaswamy
vSphere APIs for Performance Monitoring
Level: Advanced
Length: 60 minutes
Building on the initial knowledge of vSphere APIs, learn about the features available to developers via vSphere Web Services APIs to collect performance statistics. We will also discuss the best practices in collecting performance data when using these APIs. This presentation is a must-attend for any developer that retrieves performance information from the vSphere platform in any large environment. While the content is advanced, developers new to the platform will find it useful as well.
Speaker: Balaji Parimi, Ravi Soundararajan
<BYO> Lunch Break 12:30 – 1:00>
Automating vSphere Management Using PowerCLI & Onyx
Level: Advanced
Length: 60 minutes
This two-part session focuses on PowerCLI and Onyx. VMware vSphere PowerCLI is a powerful command line tool that lets you automate all aspects of vSphere management, including network, storage, VM, guest OS and more. PowerCLI is distributed as a Windows PowerShell snap-in, and includes more than 230 PowerShell cmdlets, along with documentation and samples. Onyx is a standalone application that serves as a proxy between the vSphere Client and the vCenter Server. It monitors the network communication between them and translates it into an executable PowerShell code. Later this code could be modified and saved into a reusable function or script. The audience will walk away with deeper understanding of how and when to use PowerCLI and Onyx.
Speaker: Vladimir Goranov, Yavor Boychev
Advanced performance troubleshooting using esxtop
Level: Advanced
Length: 60 minutes
This talk will teach you how to spot tricky performance issues using the various counters in esxtop.
Speaker: Krishna Raj Raja, Staff Engineer, Performance Team
I get a lot of questions about what students should expect when taking the vSphere Automation Course (PowerCLI) and thought it would be good to interview one of our top course instructors. So please meet Mr. Joe Christie.
PR: Joe thanks for taking the time to participate in this interview. Can you tell us about your Professional background, how long have you been with VMware?
JC: I've been a trainer since 1992-1993 and I've been with VMware since Dec of 2005.
PR: Can you tell us about your first experience with PowerCLI, what did you like about ?
JC: I gave a presentation and worked in the lab for the PERL Toolkit at VMworld2007. When the Powershell Toolkit first came out I was interested because as a Microsoft trainer, I had some exposure to PowerShell. I was impressed with the language and how quickly people seemed to get up to speed producing useable code.
PR: Can you tell us about the vSphere Automation Course you teach (PowerCLI)? What types of students is this course for?
JC: Students who are familiar with vSphere as administrators with knowledge equal to our Install, Configure and Manage course and also have some familiarity with simple scripting like vbscript, PERL or even advanced batch file creation.
PR: What should students expect to get out of course?
JC: An understanding of how PowerCLI works interactively, how to navigate the provided help utilities and the ability take existing scripts or pieces of code and use them with little or no modification in their environment.
PR: What materials do you recommend people read before attending this course ?
JC: there are a lot of tutorials on PowerShell on the internet but if someone wants to purchase a book then "Powershell in Action" by Bruce Payette is a good place to start learning PowerShell. The second edition was recently released. .Students might also consider Hal Rottenbergs book Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell.
PR: How will students considering migrating to ESXi benefit from this course ?
JC: This course will help users who have built COS based scripts create new scripts for the ESXi environment. As you know PowerCLI and can be an extremely powerful automation tool when used properly.
PR: How can students sign up for the course ?
JC: They can enroll online have them visit http://vmware.com/go/vsphereautomation. Students should also know that course is available worldwide directly from VMware and through our partners.
PR: Can students use their PSO Credits towards this course ?
JC: Yes, just like any other VMware Course. Please work with your local representative for more information.
PR: Any other words for users out there who are considering using PowerCLI ?
JC: Anyone who has done the same task in the vSphere client more than once should take this class. Creating objects, managing objects, retrieving information about objects these can all be automated with PowerCLI and also creating custom Reports which is really easy to do using PowerCLI. Take a look at Yavor Boychev's video. A nice one about Getting Started and about Reporting.
If you are attending VMworld Copenhagen and wanted to learn more about PowerCLI this post is for you. If you already know about the PowerCLI please forward this post to your newbie friends.
What is vSphere PowerCLI ? vSphere PowerCLI is a set of snapins based on Windows PowerShell that provide administration and automation for VMware vSphere. vSphere PowerCLI ships with over 200 commandlets (pre-built commands) to help administrators manage vSphere.
What can you do with vSphere PowerCLI ? vSphere PowerCLI is built on the vSphere API. As a general rule you can do most things with PowerCLI than you can with the vSphere Client. This means that you can script common tasks to help you save time.
What sessions should I attend if you are attending VMworld 2010 Copenhagen ?
We strongly recommend you attend "vSphere PowerCLI is for Administrators" by Luc Dekens and Alan Renouf. TA 6944 (HURRY THE SESSIONS FILL UP EARLY)
You should also take the PowerCLI Lab 26 (If you hurry you can also get our very cool PowerCLI Poster at our Lab)
Is there someone that I talk to about PowerCLI and get more information ?
YES – We have flown our top POWERCLI engineers to VMworld to meet our customers to answer questions get your feedback. Please come and visit us at the VMware PowerCLI Booth
Vitali – PowerCLI Engineering Team – ready to answer your questions
Lots of customers coming by for the FREE poster and very cool Bumber Sticker
We invite you to come by our PowerCLI Booth at VMworld Copenhagen and meet our PowerCLI Product Management and PowerCLI Engineering Teams. We also plan on distributing some of our PowerCLI posters as well as other goodies our marketing department has put together.
Come with all your PowerCLI questions and feedback ! We look forward to meeting our European PowerCLI fans !
Hope to see you at VMworld 2010 Copenhagen. We have a great line up of sessions and activities for our PowerCLI fans. Hope to see you there.
Sessions: TA 6944 vSphere PowerCLI is for Administrators
Abstract: In larger organisations administrating a vSphere environment can cause headaches. Some of the burning questions you surely recognize:
Who gave that VM 4 CPU's ? Who connected the NIC to the DMZ PortGroup and when ?
In this session, Luc Dekens and Alan Renouf will show you how to automate the answers to these questions with the help of PowerCLI.The solutions presented will show you how the combined strengths of the rich PowerShell command set and the PowerCLI snapin provide you with powerful tools to make this all happen. Alan and Luc will show you how to take PowerCLI beyond the listing and reporting stage. They will show you how to write and use scripts that will inform you when problems actually.
This session will show several aspects of working with PowerCLI. The classic PowerCLI approach but also the use of the SDK methods when execution speed is required. And the use of third party products like PowerGUI, PowerWF or Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) to integrate the solutions even better into the corporate environment.
Luc and Alan will show several practical demos to highlight this integration. One of the demos will show for example how easy it is to use Active Directory to find a user’s email address and send him a message to tell him that his guest is using too many snapshots. If the mail stays unread, the script can try to reach the user via a Tweet.
Alan and Luc in SF VMworld – As you can see the sign in the back – register early. These guys tend to draw a massive crowd.
Labs: PowerCLI Lab 26
Abstract: This lab will provide hands on training for scripting a VMware environment. The goal is to provide all the tools needed to automate, integrate, and extend VMware vCenter™ for your environment. Attendees will use the Microsoft PowerShell based PowerCLI for scripting VMware vCenter™ and ESX. They’ll walk away from the lab with a better understanding of VMware Infrastructure, resources for using the toolkit, and a variety of scripts for performing common administrative tasks. Exercises will cover performing tasks based on VM attributes, performing actions on many VMs at a time, and exporting performance data. This lab does not require programming or scripting experience.
Lab Captain: Alton Yu
vSphere PowerCLI Booth
We will have our PowerCLI engineering and product management teams during event. So please do come on over and say hello. We will be in the Cloud Infrastructure and Management Solutions.
vSphere PowerCLI booth in SF. We will also have plenty of PowerCLI Engineering and Product Management teams to ask questions and give us your feedback.
