Hello

I am in the hotel waiting for the MMS 2012 to start so there is time for some automation ;-). Last week when I was teaching a course one of the attendes said after I showed the custom value function, that he also wanted a similar function for easy in the console check how many snapshots every VM had. In the VMM 2012 console I have not found an built-in function to actually show this.

I have modified the function and created the run script, this is scheduled to run once a hour so you have a updated view of your environment. At least in the Hyper-V for Windows 2008 R2 it is not recommended to use in production.

It is quite easy to create a new custom property that we then will populate,

New-SCCustomProperty -Name "Snapshot Count" -Description "" -AddMember @("VM")

In the GUI there is no way to remove a custom property, I can only remove it from assigned properties. During the course I created an property just for showing and want to get rid of it. Of course there is a powershell cmdlet for that:

Get-SCCustomProperty -Name "Muuuu" | Remove-SCCustomProperty

But now to the part of getting the script to show snapshots (yes I know, in VMM it is called Checkpoints but i refuse to call it that)

First I have the PowerShell function

function Set-CVSnapShot{
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Function to Update custom values for VM´s in VMM 2012
 
.DESCRIPTION
Use this function to  set the custom value Snapshot count
 
.PARAMETER  VMs
Use this parameter to update just that VM´s custom snapshot value
 
.NOTES
Author: Niklas Akerlund / RTS
Date: 2012-04-16
#>
    param (
   [Parameter(Position=0,HelpMessage="A virtual machine pleaze",
    ValueFromPipeline=$True)]
    $VMs = " "
    )
   
  	if ($VMs -eq " "){
    	$VMs = Get-SCVirtualMachine
	}else{
		$VMs = Get-SCVirtualMachine  $VMs
	}
	
  	$CustomSnapShot = Get-SCCustomProperty -Name "Snapshot Count"
   
	foreach ($VM in $VMs){
		$count = ($VM | Get-SCVMCheckpoint).Count
		
	    if($count -ne $null){
	        Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $VM -CustomProperty $CustomSnapShot -Value $count 
	    }else{
	        Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $VM -CustomProperty $CustomSnapShot -Value 0 
	    }
   }
}

then I have a very easy script that I task scheduled in my VMM server

# Script to use for scheduled updates of Custom values
#
# Niklas Akerlund / RTS 2012-04-16

ipmo 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\Virtual Machine Manager\bin\psModules\VirtualMachineManager' | Out-Null

. .\Set-CVSnapshot.ps1
Set-CVSnapshot

And in the VMM Console it looks like this

I will talk to some VMM responsibles at MMS and see if they find an interest and build the view instead of me running it in a sheduled task (as the information is there in the database)

Today i had the pleasure to install and configure the Windows PowerShell Web Access in Windows 8. This gives you an opportunity to administer your internal servers with a Web Powershell Console. The really nice part here is that when I have enabled this I can connect to an Windows Server 2008 R2 with Powershell v2.

I have configured it with Authorization to everything, now this is a test environment but in your maybe you should be more restrictive,

Get-WindowsFeature WindowsPowerShellWebAccess | Add-WindowsFeature
Install-PswaWebApplication -UseTestCertificate
Add-PswaAuthorizationRule * * *

So I can connect with for example a Ipad and administer my Hyper-V Cluster in SCVMM2012 😛

In this link you can see how to configure this on your Windows 8 Server Beta.

Here is the login prompt…

And here you can see how i run commands in the console, As you can see I must use Import-Module to import the VMM 2012 cmdlets before I can use them. This is a flash embedded video from youtube (where i uploaded it to) If you do not see it you can go to this link

I still have to find out why I cannot use the PowerCLI PSSnapin, I get an OutOfMemory exception when trying to connect-viserver 🙁 will have to dig a bit deeper to check that one out. Maybe there is a bug in the PSSnapin, an excellent time for VMware to make a Module instead!

I have made a powershell script function to update information about what VLAN and IP the VM´s have. This for the IT Admin to easily see in the VMM 2012 Console. Of course the function can be customized to populate any other information available for the VM´s, maybe you want to display create date or something else that is not in the standard properties and you do not want to use the pre-made custom# .

I am using the Get-IPAddress from Ben Wilkinson, This requires that the VMM server can resolve the IP of the VM´s from a DNS.

If I do not have an DNS or the VLAN info is not stored, i can via the parameters update the properties by -IP or -VLANid.

As you can see on this screen dump, by default i only have custom#, to add my own i have to click on “Manage Custom Properties”

Here i press “Create” and add a name and optionally a description

Then when i have created the custom properties i want i add them,

Then it looks like this,

Now the powershell function comes into play when i am going to populate these fields with information.

function Set-CustomValue{
# Function to add custom data on VMs
#
# Niklas Akerlund /RTS 2012-02-18
    param (
   [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$true,HelpMessage="A virtual machine pleaze",
    ValueFromPipeline=$True)]
    $VM,
	$VLANid = "",
	$IP = ""
    )
    . .\Get-IPAddress.ps1
    
    $VM = Get-SCVirtualMachine $VM
	
  	$CustomIP = Get-SCCustomProperty -Name "IP"
    $CustomVLAN = Get-SCCustomProperty -Name "VLAN"
    
	if ($IP -eq ""){
		$IP = Get-IPAddress -HostName $VM.Name
    }
	
	if ($VLANid -eq ""){
	    $VMnics = $VM | Get-SCVirtualNetworkAdapter
	    if($VMnics.Count -ne $null){
	        foreach ($VMnic in $VMnics){
	            $VLANid = $VLANid + $VMnic.VlanID + " "
	        }
	        Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $VM -CustomProperty $CustomVLAN -Value $VLANid
	    }else{
	        Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $VM -CustomProperty $CustomVLAN -Value $VMnics.VlanID
	    }
    }else {
		Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $VM -CustomProperty $CustomVLAN -Value $VLANid
	}
    if($IP -ne ""){
        Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $VM -CustomProperty $CustomIP -Value $IP       
    }
}

a screendump of my powershell console, as you can see I am using the (Get-SCVMHostCluster).Nodes to get all virtual machines on these, also i am using a foreach (%) to run the population on each VM.

And this is how it looks in the VMM console,

 

I have made a simple powershell function that can move VM´s from one cluster to another and also set the network configuration, this because the old cluster had one way of setup regarding the virtual machine network and the new another more flexible with promiscuous mode set on the HP nic team so i do not need to create one virtual switch for every vlan. The function also checks if the actual VM has snapshots before moving it. (the SCVMM calls it checkpoints, which is stupid to call it one thing in hyper-v and another in SCVMM!)

the powershell function looks like this:

function Migrate-VM {

param (
   [Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=$true,HelpMessage="A virtual machine pleaze",
    ValueFromPipeline=$True)]
    $VM,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$VMHost,
    $VMnic,
    $VMnetwork = "VMs",
    $Datastore = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1",
    [switch]$StartVM
    )
    
    if( Get-SCVirtualMachine $VM | Get-SCVMCheckpoint) {
		$VM = Get-SCVirtualMachine $VM
		Write-Host " Please remove snapshots and do a shutdown of the VM:" + $VM.Name
    }else{
	    $JobGroupID = [guid]::NewGuid()
	    
	    $VMHost = Get-SCVMHost $VMHost
	    $VMnic = Get-SCVirtualMachine $VM | Get-SCVirtualNetworkAdapter
	    
	    $LogicalNetwork = (Get-SCLogicalNetworkDefinition -VLanID $VMnic.VlanID).LogicalNetwork

	    Set-SCVirtualNetworkAdapter -VirtualNetworkAdapter $VMnic -RunAsynchronously -VirtualNetwork $VMnetwork -LogicalNetwork $LogicalNetwork -VLanEnabled $true -VLanID $VMnic.VlanID -JobGroup $JobGroupID -EnableVMNetworkOptimization $false -EnableMACAddressSpoofing $false
	    if($StartVM){
	        Move-SCVirtualMachine -VM $VM -VMHost $VMHost -HighlyAvailable $true -Path $Datastore -StartVMOnTarget -RunAsynchronously -UseLAN -JobGroup $JobGroupID
	    }else
	    {
	        Move-SCVirtualMachine -VM $VM -VMHost $VMHost -HighlyAvailable $true -Path $Datastore -RunAsynchronously -UseLAN -JobGroup $JobGroupID
	    }
    }   
    
}

And this screendump shows some different ways of running it,

Had a plan to do a blog post last week but was so busy studying for the VCP 5 test. I wrote the test on friday and i passed 🙂

I have created a little powershell function, this to get the inventory information about the virtual machines running in hosts or clusters that are connected to a System Center Virtual Machine Manager. This function collects number of configured vCPU´s, Memory, information about the connected virtual harddisks. This kind of information could be handy as in the case with one customer that has not yet implemented a host based backup solution and still use agents in their VM´s, so if they need to recover machines it is good to know what size and configuration it had if it is lost by some reason. This report can also be handy for some info on how much your datastores are filled. As you can se i both report the maximum size and the current (as dynamic disks are not allocating the whole size at creation time)

The function both export a csv and a HTML report

After importing it to excel it can look something like this:

And the html output is very simple but can be put on a internal web for IT production

I have used the Get-SCVirtualDisk to get the Bus Type and LUN id as this information is not available in Get-SCVirtualHarddisk, this information can be good if i lost the virtual machine configuration and want to connect the virtual harddisks to the right controller.

the function looks like this: (if you copy this you have to move the first # up to the <, the blog syntax highlighter does something and move it down :-( )

function Get-VMdata{
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Get the configuration data of the VMs in Hyper-V via SCVMM 2012
 
.DESCRIPTION
Use this function to get all VMs configuration in case of disaster or just statistics
 
.PARAMETER  xyz 
 
.NOTES
Author: Niklas Akerlund / RTS
Date: 2012-02-13
#>
param (
	$VMHostGroup = "All Hosts",
	[Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$True)][Alias('ClusterName')]
	$VMHostCluster = $null,
	$VMHost = $null,
	[string]$CSVFile = "VMdata.csv",
    [string]$HTMLReport = "VMdata.html"
    )
	
	$report = @()
	if ($VMHostCluster -eq $null){
		$VMHosts = (Get-SCVMHostGroup -Name $VMhostGroup).AllChildHosts
	}else{
			$VMHosts = (Get-SCVMHostCluster -Name $VMHostCluster).Nodes
	}
	$VMs = $VMHosts | Get-SCVirtualMachine
	
	foreach ($VM in $VMs) {
		$VHDs = $VM | Get-SCVirtualDiskDrive
		$i = "1"
		foreach ($VHDconf in $VHDs){ 
			if($i -eq "1"){
				$data = New-Object PSObject -property @{
					VMName=$VM.Name
			        vCPUs=$VM.CPUCount
			        MemoryGB= $VM.Memory/1024
					VHDName = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.Name
					VHDSize = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.MaximumSize/1GB
					VHDCurrentSize = [Math]::Round($VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.Size/1GB)
					VHDType = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.VHDType
					VHDBusType = $VHDconf.BusType
					VHDBus = $VHDconf.Bus
					VHDLUN = $VHDconf.Lun
					VHDDatastore = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.HostVolume
				}
				$i= "2"
			}else{
				$data = New-Object PSObject -property @{
					VMName=""
			        vCPUs=""
			        MemoryGB= ""
					VHDName = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.Name
					VHDSize = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.MaximumSize/1GB
					VHDCurrentSize = [Math]::Round($VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.Size/1GB)
					VHDType = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.VHDType
					VHDBusType = $VHDconf.BusType
					VHDBus = $VHDconf.Bus
					VHDLUN = $VHDconf.Lun
					VHDDatastore = $VHDconf.VirtualHardDisk.HostVolume
				}
			}
			$report +=$data	
		}
	}
	$report | Select-Object VMName,vCPUs,MemoryGB,VHDName,VHDSize,VHDCurrentSize,VHDType,VHDBusType,VHDBus,VHDLUN,VHDDatastore | Export-Csv -Path $CSVFile -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture
	$report | Select-Object VMName,vCPUs,MemoryGB,VHDName,VHDSize,VHDCurrentSize,VHDType,VHDBusType,VHDBus,VHDLUN,VHDDatastore | ConvertTo-HTML | Out-File $HTMLReport
}

and i can run it in some different ways, as you see in this screenshot, if i do not give any parameters it will use VMHostGroup “All Hosts” as default