VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘powershell’

VIRTUMANIA Episode 20 was far from scripted, but some of the best known names in virtualization scripting join us for this show. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 20 – Powershell is Latin to Me. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of StorageRap.com with special guests Scott Herold (@vmguru) of vmguru.com and Hal Rottenberg (@halr9000) of halr9000.com. This week’s discussion focuses on using Powershell in virtual environments instead of a GUI, compares learning scripting to learning the verbs and nouns of a new language such as Latin, and highlights several Powershell sites and tools that every administrator should check out. Virtumania is an Infosmack Production.

Before, between, and after the important stuff we also have some fun with using bots in first person shooter games, Mohitos, and the trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 20:

Read the rest of this entry »

I missed Mike DiPetrillo’s Deploying VMware in a Microsoft Shop session at VMworld 2008, but Mike apparently provided a PowerShell example of automating the migration of an Ubuntu VM between ESX hosts without using VMotion. This script would be a great alternative to a cold migration for VI Foundation customers. Mike has now posted his script and a video of a demo on his blog.

From the VMware Field: Mike D’s Virtualization Blog: Quick Migration for VMware – The Power of PowerShell shows off the script and flirts with comparing this ability to the Microsoft Hyper-V Quick Migration feature.

“One of the things that was also brought up over and over again in the debate was the fact that Quick Migration was free and came with Hyper-V since it was based on Microsoft Clustering whereas VMware VMotion was only available in the most expensive Enterprise SKU of VMware Infrastructure. So there it was – I need to create Quick Migration for the lower priced and free VMware solutions. I went off, built my little script, and showed it off at VMworld. There was a GREAT response to it so I’m posting it here for others to use or improve upon however you see fit.

The script works just like Microsoft Quick Migration – the virtual disk is stored on shared storage, the VM is suspended to disk, and the VM is then resumed on the destination.”

Mike provides the various requirements and the links later in his post.

To set this up in your environment you’ll need a few things:

Read the rest of this entry »

Although it’s VMware’s conference, every year I’ve attended Microsoft (and various other virtualization competitors) has always had a booth in the Solutions Exchange and/or presented their own session. VMworld 2008 was no exception. In fact, this year Microsoft’s presence was a little more noticeable than in the past. Starting with a marketing stunt of handing out $1 casino chips with anti VMware propaganda on Day 1, continuing throughout the conference with activities in the Solutions Exchange at their booth, and finally ending the week with their own session, Microsoft did their best to grab the attention of the attendees.

On Thursday 9.18 at 2:00 pm I sat in on Microsoft’s Virtualization session hosted by David Greshler and Edwin Yuen. The presentation was informative and entertaining with David explaining Microsoft’s server and desktop virtualization products and Edwin providing some great demos of Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager. This post is a summary of my notes along with numerous links to related videos, blogs, and sites.

What’s New in Microsoft Virtualization? Read the rest of this entry »

Like a lot of virtual infrastructure administrators already seem to be doing, I decided I better start learning about PowerShell scripting for VMware ESX and VirtualCenter. There has been a lot written on this topic in the recent months, but I have been just been speed reading through with the idea that “I’ll get around to understanding and learning this later when I have more time”. Now I am holding myself to this promise, so this post is my first steps to making myself learn. I am also looking forward to attending the Scripting VMware Infrastructure: Automating, Integrating, and Extending VI VMWorld Hands On Lab (Lab 09) already on my schedule for the conference.

Here’s what little I know about Powershell for VMware so far:

• PowerShell is actually a Microsoft application that is the base of the VMware VI Toolkit
• The best way for getting started with PowerShell is to download the Windows PowerShell 1.0 Documentation Pack
• The VMware Communities is home to the VI PowerShell Blog. They are actually running a scripting contest right now.

Here are links to several useful PowerShell scripts created by the user community: Read the rest of this entry »