Book Image

Mastering PowerCLI

By : Sajal Debnath
Book Image

Mastering PowerCLI

By: Sajal Debnath

Overview of this book

Have you ever wished that every morning you could automatically get a report with all the relevant information about your datacenter in exactly the same format you want? Or whether you could automate that boring, exhausting task? What if some crucial task needs to be performed on a regular basis without any error? PowerCLI scripts do all that and much more for VMware environments. It is built on top of the popular Windows PowerShell, with which you can automate server tasks and reduce manual input, allowing you to focus on more important tasks. This book will help you to achieve your goals by starting with a short refresher on PowerShell and PowerCLI and then covering the nuances of advanced functions and reusable scripts. Next you will learn how to build a vSphere-powered virtualized datacenter using PowerCLI while managing different aspects of the environment including automated installation, network, and storage. You will then manage different logical constructs of vSphere environment and different aspects of a virtual machine. Later, you will implement the best practices for a security implementation in vSphere Environment through PowerCLI before discovering how to manage other VMware environments such as SRM, vCloud Director and vCloud Air through PowerCLI. You will also learn to manage vSphere environments using advanced properties by accessing vSphere API and REST APIs through PowerCLI. Finally, you will build a Windows GUI application using PowerShell followed by a couple of sample scripts for reporting and managing vSphere environments with detailed explanations of the scripts. By the end of the book, you will have the required in-depth knowledge to master the art of PowerCLI scripting.

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Mastering PowerCLI
Sajal Debnath
Oct, 2015 | 430 pages
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Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Mastering PowerCLI
Mastering PowerCLI
Credits
Credits
Foreword
Foreword
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
PowerShell and PowerCLI Refresher
PowerShell and PowerCLI Refresher
The essence of PowerShell and PowerCLI
Implementing programming constructs in PowerShell
Automation through PowerShell scripts
Running and scheduling scripts
Using version control with GitHub
Testing your scripts using Pester
Connecting to a vCenter and other VMware environments using PowerCLI cmdlets
Summary
2
Reusable Advanced Functions and Scripts
Reusable Advanced Functions and Scripts
Specifying function attributes
Specifying parameter attributes
Using parameter validation attributes
Dynamic parameters
Switch parameters
PowerShell help files
Creating comment-based help
Error handling in PowerShell
Summary
3
Deploying vSphere Hosts
Deploying vSphere Hosts
Image Builder with PowerCLI
Using host profiles
Configuring Auto Deploy for ESXi hosts
Adding hosts to a vCenter server
Summary
4
Managing Networks
Managing Networks
Managing vSphere standard switches
Managing networking for ESXi
Managing vSphere distributed switches
Managing port groups
Creating private VLANs
Configuring vSphere network I/O control
Configuring Netflow
Working with ports
Summary
5
Managing Storage
Managing Storage
Managing datastores
Configuring Fibre Channel storage
Configuring iSCSI storage
Configuring NFS storage
Configuring virtual SAN
Using datastore clusters
Using Raw Device Mapping
Managing storage using storage policy-based management
Applying VMFS resignaturing
Configuring vFLASH using PowerCLI Extensions
Summary
6
Managing Clusters and Other Constructs
Managing Clusters and Other Constructs
Configuring vCenter logical constructs
Configuring the Enhanced vMotion Compatibility mode
Configuring High Availability
Using Dynamic Resource Scheduling
Using the DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules
Managing resource pools
Managing alarms
Summary
7
Managing Virtual Machines
Managing Virtual Machines
Creating virtual machines
Modifying virtual machines
Managing templates
Managing OS customization specifications
Managing the guest OS
Managing vApps
Summary
8
Managing vSphere Security, SRM, vCloud Air, and vROps
Managing vSphere Security, SRM, vCloud Air, and vROps
The vSphere Security Hardening Guide
Managing vSphere Update Manager
Configuring a firewall and services in an ESXi host
Managing host profiles
Managing vCenter Site Recovery Manager
Managing vCloud Air
Managing vRealize Operations Manager
Summary
9
Managing the vSphere API
Managing the vSphere API
Using the Get-View cmdlet to return .NET View objects
Using the ExtensionData property to return .NET View objects
Using the vSphere API
Creating a vSphere scheduled task
Configuring Distributed Power Management
Configuring Fault Tolerance
Managing Content Libraries
Managing SRM advanced configurations
Generating PowerCLI code using Onyx
PowerActions for vSphere Web Client
Summary
10
Using REST APIs
Using REST APIs
Introducing REST APIs
Introducing JSON
The Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet
vRealize Automation REST APIs
Authenticating and getting a vRA token
Managing tenants
Managing machines
Managing approvals
Managing provisioned resources
Managing network profiles
Summary
11
Creating Windows GUI
Creating Windows GUI
Different ways to create a Windows GUI
Building a GUI using Windows Forms
Using SAPIEN PowerShell Studio
Building GUI using WPF
Summary
12
Best Practices and Sample Scripts
Best Practices and Sample Scripts
Best practices
Security Hardening Script
Capacity check report
Using a proper editor
Summary
Index
Index

About the Reviewers

Amit Agarwal is a senior software engineer working with Great Software Laboratory (GS Lab), Pune, in its Cloud and infrastructure practice.

He is a VMware Certified Professional 5 – Data Center Virtualization, VMware Certified Associate – Data Center Virtualization, and a VMware Certified Associate – Cloud. He is also a frequent contributor to the VMware Technology Network (VMTN).

He has more than three years' experience working with PowerShell and VMware vSphere PowerCLI for building test automation frameworks and scripts, contributing to quality assurance for complex virtualization and network security products.

GS Lab is a product development partner for software product companies with customers that include world-leading technology vendors, as well as start-ups. Our customer engagements span the entire product journey right from prototyping, to development, support, DevOps, and professional services.

I would like to thank my colleagues from Calsoft—Amar, Archana, and Madhumita—for their help during my learning process. I also would like to thank my family and friends for their continuous support.

Jason Gaudreau has over 24 years of industry experience. He is currently working as a senior product marketing engineer at VMware, a leading information technology provider of enterprise application solutions.

He focuses on virtualization solutions and aligning infrastructure technologies to meet strategic business objectives. He has been concentrating on data center virtualization, desktop virtualization, and building internal private clouds in a variety of technical roles the past 10 years and more. He has been an active blogger on virtualization since 2012 at www.jasongaudreau.com and can be found on Twitter at @JAGaudreau. He is honored to have been designated as a vExpert by VMware in 2013-2015 and an EMC Elect in 2014.

Before VMware, he was an IT architect for AdvizeX Technologies and in IT leadership at Unum Group, where he helped to develop the organization's IT strategy.

When not talking shop, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Christine, and his two kids, Dylan and Tyler.

Kyle Ruddy is a senior technical consultant. He has over 10 years of experience in the IT field. He has obtained multiple certifications, including VCAP-DCD and DCA, held the VCP since Version 3, GCWN (GIAC Certified Windows Security Administrator), and MCITP: SA, MCSE, among others. He has also been a VMware vExpert since 2012, a Cisco Champion since 2014, and a leader for the Indy VMUG since 2011.

You can contact him on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kmruddy, Twitter at @kmruddy, or through his blog at www.thatcouldbeaproblem.com.

Brian Wuchner is a deputy IT director of a government agency. He has over 15 years of industry experience in infrastructure automation, directory services, server hosting, storage, and data center virtualization. He holds the EMC proven professional cloud architect and VMware VCP5-DCV certifications. He was awarded the VMware vExpert title from VMware in 2011-2015. He can be contacted on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/bwuch, Twitter at @bwuch, or through his blog at http://enterpriseadmins.org.

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