Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Scripting

vSphere Quick Start Guide – PowerCLI and PDF

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Alan Renouf posted an article on the vSphere Quick Start Guide we recently wrote which triggered this article. First let me quote from Alan’s article:

I was responsible for adding all the PowerCLI throughout the book, basically if something is explained and there is an easy way to do it in PowerCLI, we have added a code reference, this enables you to see how much is covered by PowerCLI and also how easy it actually is.

In writing the PowerCLI areas I didn’t actually realise how many we had put in until the book was completed and I extracted them all into a nice zip file which can be downloaded and used from here: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/wp-content/uploads/quickstartguide.zip

All in all there are 67 scripts, now obviously if you want to know more information about these scripts and exactly where they fit in you will need to buy the book.

Download these scripts as they will definitely help you manage your environment better and more consistent. Secondly they will help you learn Powershell/PowerCLI faster, especially if you also own the book. Which is the second part of this post, the book… it’s available in print via Amazon and Lulu. But also available as a PDF via Lulu. You can find the links below, but keep in mind that depending on shipping costs sometimes the US one might be cheaper. Let me also be crystal clear about the PDF, it’s a separate item. If you want the PDF you will need to order it. We do however have added it to our “must haves” for the next book, we hope we will be able to offer a printed and pdf version in one package by then.

Anyway, close to 2000 copies have been sold by now. Amazon has books on stock which should make a fast delivery possible.

Amazon – US $15.99
Lulu – Europe: € 14.29
Lulu – PDF: €7.14 / $9.99

vscsiStats output in esxtop format?

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This week we(Frank Denneman and I) played around with vscsiStats, it’s a weird command and hard to get used to when you normally dive into esxtop when there are performance issues. While asking around for more info on the metrics and values someone emailed us nfstop. I assumed it was NDA or at least not suitable for publication yet  but William Lam pointed me to a topic on the VMTN Communities which contains this great script. Definitely worth checking out. This tool parses the vscsiStats output into an esxtop format. Below a screenshot of what that looks like:

Book: VMware VI and vSphere SDK

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I received Steve Jin’s book VMware VI and vSphere SDK: Managing the VMware Infrastructure and vSphere two weeks ago. For those who don’t know Steve, he is the man behind the VI and vSphere Java API which can be found here. But that’s not the topic today, the topic is the book Steve recently published. The book is available via Amazon and most other large (online) bookstores.

VMware VI and vSphere SDK takes you on a tour through the SDK trenches. Knowing the SDK is essential when scripting or programming with for instance Powershell, Perl, Java and Python.

I am not a developer and always had a tough time understanding the structure and getting my head wrapped around the “managed objects” and “data objects” concepts. Steve managed to get me on the track. I’m half way through the book right now and can already highly recommend it to everyone who wants to know more about the SDK, everyone who recently started scripted and is running into limitations of provided examples, and everyone who wants to know more about the core of vSphere / VI3.

One of the Amazon reviews that stood out to me is the following by David Rousseau:

If like me you are tired of using vSphere or VI 2.5 official SDK, this book is for you.

Steve Jin has done a great job simplifying SDK access and improving performance drastically.
After using his VI Java API described in this book, you will no longer return to official VI Java SDK or other VI Toolkit.

You can code in Java but also in Python using Jython or IronPython.

We’ve choosed Jython and coupled it with some great web frameworks in python like Django. We’ve built a powerful web app exposing a RESTful API.

Add to this a real talent in popularizing VI objects in the SDK, this book saved me lots of time.

in the ghetto….

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William Lam just updated two of his most popular scripts. If you haven’t looked at them yet, make sure you do as they are worth it. ghettoVCB(g2) enables the backup of virtual machines residing on either an ESX or ESXi host. ghettoVCBg2 is a complete rewritten and enhanced version of ghettoVCB or as William puts it “harder, better, faster, stronger”.

ghettoVCBg2

11/17/09 – The following enhancements and fixes have been implemented in this release of ghettoVCBg2. Special thanks goes out to Gerhard Ostermann for assisting with some of the logic in the ghettoVCBg2 script and the rest of the ghettoVCBg2 BETA testers. Thanks for everyones time and comments to make this script better!

Enhancements:

  • Email log support
  • Include/exclude specific VMDK(s)
  • Additional logging + dry run mode

Fixes:

  • Independent disk aware
  • Large VMDK backups

Original script, but updated with new features and a bug fix:

ghettoVCB

11/17/09 – The following enhancements and fixes have been implemented in this release of ghettoVCB. Special thanks goes out to all the ghettoVCB BETA testers for providing time and their environments to test features/fixes of the new script!

Enhancements:

  • Individual VM backup policy
  • Include/exclude specific VMDK(s)
  • Logging to file
  • Timeout variables
  • Configur snapshot memory/quiesce
  • Adapter format
  • Additional logging + dryrun mode
  • Support for both physical/virtual RDMs

Fixes:

  • Independent disk aware

The uncrowned king of PowerCLI is Alan Renouf

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No, I am not exaggerating. Alan Renouf truly is the uncrowned king of PowerCLI. Although I’ve seen some amazing scripts from other people as well Alan always seems to bring that little extra to make him stand out. No this is not an Alan Renouf appreciation blog article, although he deserves one, this article is about his two latest additions.

The first one is the Virtu-Al VESI & PowerGui Powerpack. If you are like me, not a powercli hero, this is what you were looking for all along. Alan has bundled all his script into a Powerpack which enables you to import all his scripts at once and run them with a single click. All scripts are placed into categories which makes them easy to find. Not only can you use them you can also modify them to your needs. Of course if you do improve these scripts give some feedback to Alan so that he might be able to incorporate it into the Powerpack.

The second one is Version 3 of the daily report or vCheck as it is called as of v3. I wrote about version 1 and many people have downloaded it and are using it in their environment. The script just got better and a whole set of new features have been added. Alan was smart enough to ask around in the community what his report was lacking and incorporated all these tips in Version 3 of vCheck(previously known as the Daily Report). Again, if you feel there is anything missing don’t hesitate to leave a comment and ask Alan if he can add it… Here’s the list of new features:

  • Status report to screen whilst running interactively
  • At the top of the script you can now turn off any areas you do not want to report on (this makes it faster to run)
  • VMs on Local storage has been changed to report VMs stored on datastores attached to only one host
  • VM active alerts
  • Cluster Active Alerts
  • If HA Cluster is set to use host datastore for swapfile, check the host has a swapfile location set
  • Host active Alerts
  • Dead SCSI Luns
  • VMs with over x amount of vCPUs
  • vSphere check: Slot Sizes
  • vSphere check: Outdated VM Hardware (Less than V7)
  • VMs in Inconsistent folders (the name of the folder is not the same as the name)
  • Added the number of issues to each title line

Carter can you please hand over your crown to Alan?! Thanks,