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.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Mastering PowerCLI
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
Acknowledgment
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Switch parameters


Switch parameters are parameters without any need to assign any value to them. As the name suggests, they act as a switch. By default, their values are $false. Once these parameters are mentioned in the command line, their values become $true. We can use this switch parameter to perform our checks and run their respective script blocks. The following example is a function that connects to a vCenter server or vCloud Director server based on the input that we provide. As parameter values, we accept ServerName and UserName to connect to the server, Password for the connection, and another parameter that will act as a switch. If we mention –VCServer in the command line, then the Connect-VIServer cmdlets will be executed; if –VCDServer is mentioned, then the Connect-CIServer cmdlets will be executed. So, run the following code snippet:

Function Connect-Server{
[CmdletBinding()]
 Param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
            [string]$ServerName,
            [string]$UserName...