Author: Ben Liebowitz
Adding a PowerShell Windows Update Script to my VMware Customizations
In my environments, we typically convert the templates to Virtual Machines once a quarter so we can install Windows Updates. This means, there could be a number of patches to install if you’re 2+ months out from the last time they were updated. So I decided to use a PowerShell script that my coworker wrote to do Windows Updates and…
My Experience Upgrading vCenter to 5.5 Update 3b
I recently upgraded my vCenter from 5.5 Update 2, to 5.5 Update 3b. As this is a fairly straightforward process, I didn’t expect anything to go wrong. I proceeded through all the main components and once completed, attempted to connect to vCenter… I found I couldn’t connect. Further investigation found that the service would not start! Attempting to start the…
Patching VMware ESXi Hosts via PowerCLI!
*** Updated 5/17/2017 – See below *** This year, I’m trying something new… Anything that I have to do more than 2-3 times, I’m going to attempt to automate it! In keeping with this mantra, I recently had a task come across my plate to patch the 20+ ESXi Hosts in one of my production environments. Along with installing the…
Display list of Multiple vCenter Servers to connect to in your PowerCLI Scripts
If you’re company anything like mine, you probably have multiple vCenter servers in your environment. They may be linked, they may not. In my environment, we have 4 vCenter servers we consider Production, even though one is for QA, and we have a lab environment. Normally, I just connect to vCenter manually in PowerCLI before I run a command/script to…
Migrating Roles & Privileges from an old vCenter to a new vCenter using PowerCLI
So we’re finally upgrading an old environment running vCenter 4.0 to a new vCenter running 5.5. Instead of attempting an upgrade, we’re building new. As it’s a new build, we had to find a way to migrate the roles & privileges to the new vCenter. I have done this in the past utilizing the “Cheap Disaster Recovery” scripts from Gabe’s…
Place a vSphere Host into Maintenance Mode via PowerCLI
So, we had two different vSphere hosts, in two different environments, have hardware faults this week. One had a bad memory module, and the other a bad FAN. As I launched the VI client for each environment and placed the problem host into maintenance mode, I started to think… “I bet I can automate this!” Depending on how complex your…
You should backup your VDS Configs with PowerCLI
So, another vExpert that I follow on twitter (@h0bbel) recently had an issue in his home lab where he cut power to his lab, and his vDS lost all the portgroup names. Seeing this post made me think, “I should probably backup MY vDS configs too, as my backups were pretty old! Here are some PowerCLI commands that I found…
My First VMworld Experience
So, VMworld US 2015 was my first time being able to experience VMworld first hand, and not by streaming keynotes and watching recorded sessions months later. As a VMUG Leader, I’ve experienced VMUG Meetings and UserCons before (both as a leader and a member) but this was a whole different animal! First off, I…
PowerCLI Script to list VMs not specifically set to Thick Eager Zeroed
First, I’ll start with a little back story. We recently deployed an EMC XTremIO All-Flash storage appliance. The recommendation we got from EMC, for the best deduplication ratios, was to use the Thick-Eager Zeroed disk format. No matter how many times I tell my coworkers to make sure to use this format when deploying VMs to the xTremIO LUNs, once…
PowerCLI Script to change the DRS Slider
So, I have a cluster of hosts that makes up our QA Environment. As with most QA environments, it’s tight on resources and very over-subscribed. On a regular basis, I have to move our DRS Slider to be more aggressive, RUN DRS to refresh recommendations, and then move the slider back. This allows DRS to rebalance the cluster. Today, I…