PowerCLI

VMware vSphere PowerCLI provides a Windows Powershell interface to the VMware vSphere and vCloud and the SRM APIs. VMware vSphere PowerCLI includes numerous cmdlets, sample scripts, and a function library. PowerCLI is a command-line and scripting tool built on Windows PowerShell, and provides more than 400 cmdlets for managing and automating vSphere and vCloud.

This release of vSphere PowerCLI introduces a number of new capabilities and expands on the existing cmdlets introducing cmdlets for vCenter Site Recovery Manager and providing further management of the VMware vSphere and VMware vCloud Director products.

Using the Connect-SRMServer and Disconnect-SRMServer you are now able to connect to vCenter SRM and access all public APIs available, use of the $global:DefaultSrmServers object properties and methods after connection allow for access to recovery group and protection group automation.


Sample Scripts for Managing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with VMware vSphere PowerCLI

• Protect a Virtual Machine - You can protect a virtual machine by replicating it to a remote SRM site.
  
• Connect-SrmServer - This cmdlet establishes a connection to a vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) server.
• Create a Report of the Virtual Machines Associated with All Protection Groups - You can create a simple report containing information about the virtual machines associated with all protection groups.
• Create a Report of the Protected Virtual Machines - You can create a simple report containing information about the protected virtual machines associated with an SRM server.

Windows PowerShell is Microsoft’s command line shell and scripting language. PowerShell is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and helps in system administration. By providing full access to COM (Component Object Model) and WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), PowerShell enables administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems.

Administrators can manage the computers in the enterprise and perform administrative tasks from the command line using built-in cmdlets, which are specialized .NET classes. Unlike most other command line interfaces, PowerShell commands have been standardized using a verb-noun naming convention known as a cmdlet. This convention provides a clear description of the cmdlet, and enables access to different Windows components like the registry, file system, services, processes, and others. There are sufficient cmdlets to support most administrative activities.

VMware View PowerCLI cmdlets are provided by a dll, which is installed as part of the VMware View Connection Server (Server\bin\PowershellServiceCmdlets.dll) under the VMware Connection Server installation). This dll, once registered with PowerShell, allows all VMware View PowerCLI cmdlets to be run on the VMware Connection Server.

 This technical paper covers the integration of VMware View with Windows PowerShell and PowerCLI.

In this demo from Train Signal's VMware vSphere PowerCLI course, Hal Rottenberg shows how to use PowerCLI to get a VM host that is in maintenance mode and move it to an existing cluster. He'll then go into detail about cluster settings and how to make changes to them using PowerCLI. You can use these and other High Availability tasks in your own environment to minimize downtime in case of a host or virtual machine outage.