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Category Archives: Extensions

The making of the vSphere PowerCLI Poster…

Folks,

Here in sunny Florida and thought I would share with you guys some of the history behind our poster. To date we have distributed close to 9K posters !

The very begining……

The poster all started as a casual conversation with Carter. We needed a simple reference sheet that had all the commandlets listed in some organized fashion. We mustered some resources together and got our first release out. As you can tell we have come a long way……..

(Our first poster was printed in India with help from our partners – Interra IT)

Improving the Poster – adding Quick Reference by Alan Renouf

Along the way we wanted to make the poster even better by adding useful references/tips. After weeks of negotiation (Beers) Alan R. agreed to let us use his material for the poster.

As you can see below we also found a lot of errors 🙂 These errors were probably a result of staring at the same thing for too long. Take a look at the errors found below. Can you spot the hidden messages we incorporated into the poster ?

The latest poster gets even better….

We were grateful to get feedback from our PowerCLI VIP members and came up with our latest version for 4.1.1. and we hope you enjoy it. We are looking at making this a bit easier to print from your home / office but until then..

Your PowerCLI 4.1.1 Poster is here !

Look at all the vSphere Training Courses available around the world..(Im trying to get into the June NY class)

PowerCLI Presentation available from Portland VMUG Meeting

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Folks,

In case you wanted to review Alton's presentation at last weeks Portland VMUG see attached.

Users getting ready to hear Alton's Session.

Download POWERCLI VMUG Alton Yu

VMworld 2010 – PowerCLI Lab Manual for your reading pleasure – Alton Yu

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PoweCLI Fans,

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.

Enjoy,

Alton Yu – VMworld PowerCLI Lab Captain

Download VMworld_2010_PowerCLI_Lab_Final

Trip Report – London Workshop: Managing large scale vSphere Environments using PowerCLI

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London Trip Report – October 8^th, 2010

Folks,

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

Meet Joe Christie VMware Course Instructor – vSphere Automation (vSphere PowerCLI)

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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

Attending VMworld Copenhagen and need to learn more about PowerCLI?

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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

Come meet our PowerCLI Engineering Teams – PowerCLI Booth VMworld Copenhagen 2010

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Stay Connected @PowerCLI

Folks,

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 !

Meet Dimitar Hristov – PowerCLI Engineering

Meet Vitali Baruh – PowerCLI Engineering

Stay Connected @PowerCLI

PowerCLI Booth @VMworld Copenhagen

The PowerCLI Universe expands to Copenhagen – VMworld 2010

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Folks,

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.

vSphere PowerCLI – New Services to help your organization

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We are extremely happy to announce new Services for vSphere PowerCLI. These services are ideal for any organization building vSphere management scripts. Remember most of the things you can do with the vSphere Client you can do with PowerCLI.

vSphere Automation Course for PowerCLI

Education is key to unleashing the full power of VMware vSphere PowerCLI. Make certain that your IT professionals have the product training they need to fully utilize your investment in VMware solutions.

VMware vSphere: Automation with vSphere PowerCLI is a two-day, lab-intensive course designed to teach your IT managers, system architects and system administrators how to automate all tasks with vSphere PowerCLI. Upon completing the VMware authorized training; your team will have gained hands-on experience and obtained the knowledge to fully utilize this powerful software from the product experts—ultimately, saving your organization time and money.

The best way to ensure that your organization uses VMware vSphere PowerCLI to its fullest functionality, i.e., to automate all aspects of VMware vSphere management, is to make certain your team has the product knowledge they need to be successful. Classes are available around the world and even online. Access the course details and find the class that fits your schedule and register today.

Download PowerCLI-Training-DataSheet

vSphere PowerCLI Scripting Support:

The VMware PowerCLI Support Program provides guidance when building PowerCLI scripts. The program has primarily been targeted at ISVs and now is available to VMware Customers and Partners. The Support teams have extensive experience working with the vSphere APIs and CLIs possessing in-depth knowledge around the intricacies of the powerful vSphere APIs. This program is ideal for Independent Software/Hardware Vendors (ISVs/IHVs), commercial and enterprise organizations building solutions for managing the vSphere platform.

Support will help you answer questions such as the following:

Can I do this task with PowerCLI ?
How do I do it ?
I tried it, and it’s not working. Did I do it correctly?
It doesn’t perform like it is supposed to. Is this a bug?
Why are my scripts not working in the new release of vSphere?

Support is available in two service level agreements: Standard support provides a response within two business days, and Premium support provides a response within one business day. SDK Support engineers won’t write or test your code for you, but they may provide sample code to express a suggested solution. If you need help writing code, we recommend contacting your local VMware sales representative or reseller for information on additional service options. Visit our Official SDK Support site to learn more about support for vSphere PowerCLI

Download PowerCLI Support-DataSheet

vSphere PowerCLI – Thank you for a great VMworld 2010 – SF !

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Folks,

Just wanted to thank everyone for your support and helping us make the VMworld 2010 – SF a great event. We were truly blown away by your support and enthusiasm. I put together a few photos to help us all relive the moments hope you enjoy.

Enjoy the collection of Photos and See you in Copenhagen

Monday night Dinner organized by Mr Scott, the whos who of PowerCLI at the Table. We were warned by the Secret Service not to have everyone in the same room without a security detail.(Humor)

PowerCLI is for Administrators ! – I dont think we will forget this anytime soon 😉

Thursday PowerCLI Session is for Administrators by Luc and Alan – Full House.

Poster mad rush – thanks for your support everyone. We promise to print more.

I can still hear the roar of the crowd. Great team work !

Long line for Tuesdays session – Only Room for 250 People – With 1500 attendees

I hope you guys stopped by and visited The POWERCLI SUPPORT TEAM at the PowerCLI Booth. Dildip K on the Left and Angela S. on the right. If you were not aware VMware FULLY SUPPORTS POWERCLI – Both Spiritually and with a 1,2 and 3 Year Contract more info -> http://vmware.com/go/sdksupport

The famous PowerCLI Poster – comes with Built in Folding Instructions

Onyx Released During Vlad and Yavor's Session – Get Onyx – http://vmware.com/go/onyx

Last Session with over 700 people attending. Thank you everyone !

PowerCLI and how it relates to the vSphere APIs – Remember vSphere APIs have interfaces for both Administrators and Developers