New book – Learning PowerCLI – Second Edition

February 23, 2017 Leave a comment

Learning PowerCLI - Second Edition CoverToday, my new book Learning PowerCLI – Second Edition was published by Packt. Learning PowerCLI, Second Edition will learn you to leverage the power of PowerCLI to automate your VMware vSphere environment with ease.

Starting with an introduction to the basics of PowerCLI, the book will teach you how to manage your vSphere and vCloud infrastructure from the command line. To help you manage a vSphere host overall, you will learn how to manage vSphere ESXi hosts, and deploy and upgrade ESXi hosts using Image Builder and Auto Deploy.

The upcoming chapters will not only teach you how to create datastores and datastore clusters, but you’ll also work with profile-driven and policy-based storage to manage your storage. To create a disaster recovery solution and retrieve information from vRealize Operations, you will learn how to use Site Recovery Manager and vRealize Operations respectively.

Towards the end, you’ll see how to use the REST APIs from PowerShell to manage NSX and vRealize Automation and create patch baselines, scan hosts against the baselines for missing patches, and remediate hosts. By the end of the book, you will be capable of using the best tool to automate the management and configuration of VMware vSphere.

Compared to the first edition, Learning PowerCLI – Second Edition is updated to vSphere 6.5 and PowerCLI 6.5. Learning PowerCLI – Second Edition contains five new chapters about vSphere Update Manager, vCloud Director and vCloud Air, Site Recovery Manager, vRealize Operations Manager, and using REST API to Manage NSX and vRealize Automation. Read more of this post

Filed under Books, ESXi, General, News, PowerCLI, PowerShell, vCenter, vSAN, vSphere Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New VMware fling: Onyx for the Web Client

July 16, 2015 1 Comment

PowerCLI logoVMware Onyx has been a very popular fling for many years. You can use Onyx to create PowerCLI code by performing actions in the VMware vSphere client. The created PowerCLI code does exactly what you did in the client. The PowerCLI code can easily be adapted to your own needs.

Unfortunately Onyx was not available for the vSphere Web Client. This was a pitty because since vSphere 5.1, new features were not built into the vSphere client. So you could not use Onyx to create PowerCLI for the new vSphere features. I am very happy that VMware now has released a new fling: Onyx for the Web Client. Read more of this post

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PowerCLI 5.8 R1 What’s New?

August 28, 2014 Leave a comment

PowerCLI logoDuring VMworld 2014 VMware announced the vCloud Suite 5.8. One of the components of the vCloud Suite is PowerCLI. The new PowerCLI version is 5.8 R1. The PowerCLI 5.8 R1 features announced during VMworld are:

  • Enhanced startup speed
  • Storage Policy cmdlets
  • Query an OVF/OVA for deployment properties
  • OVF/OVA deployment and configuration
  • Added a filter by tag to more cmdlets
  • Enhanced error reporting
  • Added support for RelatedObject to Get-HardDisk
  • Added filtering support to multiple areas
  • Support for latest version of vCloud APIs
  • New-CIVM cmdlet
  • Support for upcoming version of SRM

These are all great improvements for an already great product. I can’t wait until the vCloud Suite is released to use all of these new features.

Don’t forget that PowerCLI is a free tool and you can use it with all of the vCloud Suite licenses.

You can download PowerCLI from www.vmware.com/go/powercli.

For more information about VMworld go to www.vmworld.com.

Filed under News, PowerCLI, VMware, VMworld, vSphere Tagged with ,

VMworld 2014 Sunday report

August 26, 2014 Leave a comment

After arriving in San Francisco on Saturday, the first thing that happened on sunday was the 6.1 earthquake, that did shake my bed. Not being used to earthquakes, I didn’t realize it was an earthquake, until a few hours later I read the news.

After a good breakfast with the VMware VMTN Communities moderators, I went to the Hands-On-Labs to do some labs. I did the HOL-SDC-1429 Virtual Volumes Tech Preview. It is a good lab and it showed me that from an administrator point of view Virtual Volumes are not very different from datastores. You can use Storage vMotion to migrate a virtual machine from a datastore to a Virtual Volume and back, just like Storage vMotion between datastores.

Read more of this post

Filed under General, Uncategorized, VMworld Tagged with

New book – Learning PowerCLI

February 14, 2014 3 Comments

Learning PowerCLI Book CoverI am verry happy to announce that my first book Learning PowerCLI has been published today by Packt Publishing. This book is written for VMware vSphere administrators who want to automate their
vSphere environment using PowerCLI. Learning PowerCLI is written in a friendly and practical style with a focus on getting you started and automating daily tasks quickly and efficiently. If you manage or administrate a vSphere environment, and want to make that easier and more efficient, then this book is for you! It is assumed that you have at least a basic knowledge of VMware vSphere. If you are not a vSphere administrator, but you are interested in learning more about PowerCLI, then this book will also give you some basic knowledge of vSphere. Read more of this post

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Book “Learning PowerCLI” is now available for pre-order

July 4, 2013 Leave a comment

0167EN_mockupcover_normalSome of you may have noticed that I have not been blogging very much lately. This is because I am now writing my first book “Learning PowerCLI”.

This book is aimed at beginning and advanced PowerCLI users and will help you to automate your VMware vSphere environment including hosts, clusters, storage, virtual machines, networks and vCenter Server. The book teaches you how to use old and new VMware vSphere features like Datastore Clusters, the vSphere Distributed Switch, Host Profiles, Image Builder and Autodeploy, Storage I/O Control and much more using PowerCLI.

The expected release date of the “Learning PowerCLI” book is November 2013.

The “Learning PowerCLI” book is available for pre-order at http://www.packtpub.com/learning-powercli/book.

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PowerShell 3.0 is available for download

September 5, 2012 Leave a comment

PowerShell logoSince September 4th 2012 is PowerShell 3.0 available for download. PowerShell 3.0 is included in the Windows Management Framework 3.0 that contains also WMI and WinRM. It can be installed on Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0. PowerShell 3.0 is a standard component of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Read more of this post

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VMware vExpert 2012

April 21, 2012 1 Comment

This week VMware announced the vExperts for 2012 and I am proud to be one of them. Last year I didn’t make it. But this morning I received the following e-mail from Alex Maier who is the VMware vExpert Program Manager:

I am pleased to inform you that you have been designated a vExpert 2012 in recognition of your contribution to the VMware, virtualization, and cloud computing community.

You’ve done work above and beyond, helping others succeed with VMware, and we here in the Social Media and Communities team are delighted to welcome you to the program.

VMware vExperts are a special group, a network of peers, who communicate with each other and VMware closely, share resources, and get other opportunities for greater interaction throughout the year.

Thanks for all you do. The vExpert Program is going to be great this year. Keep on rocking!

With kind regards,
Alex Maier (vExpert Program Manager) and the VMware Social Media and Communities Team

Many thanks to Alex and John Mark Troyer, who started the vExpert program three years ago.

I am proud to be part of the VMware vExperts. And I look forward to work with VMware and the other vExperts more closely.

Congratulations to all the other vExperts 2012!

More information about the VMware vExpert program can be found at the vExpert Directory.

Filed under News, vExpert, VMware

Top Blog 2012 results

February 26, 2012 Leave a comment

Today Eric Siebert announced the Top Blog 2012 results. When I nominated my blog for the Top Blog voting I was a little bit afraid that I might end up last. But I didn’t.

My results

Here are my results:

Category Place Votes
Overall 145 19
Favorite Scripting Blog 10 21
Favorite New Blog 12 38
Favorite Independent Blogger Not listed

Table1. My results at the Top Blog 2012 voting.

There were 187 blogs nominated in total. So I’m very happy with place 145.

This result stimulates me to try to write a lot of good blog posts this year. And I hope to do it even better in the Top Blog voting next year.

Thank you to all who voted for my blog!

Filed under News, VMware, vSphere Tagged with ,

Introduction

July 2, 2011 Leave a comment

AvatarIn this new blog I will try to write about VMware vSphere, Microsoft Windows PowerShell and probably most about the combination of these two technologies: VMware vSphere PowerCLI.

The past two years I have been working full time with VMware vSphere and PowerCLI. I’m studying for the VCP exam. And this year I will attend VMworld for the first time. I want to write about the things that keep me busy in my job. But you can also expect to read about VMworld and my VCP study.

I hope you will enjoy reading my blog.

Filed under General