Folks,
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.
Getting Started
Reporting Video
Meet Joe Christie – PowerCLI Course Instructor