To fully utilize the performance in a vApp in vCloud Director I got the task to create an affinity rule based on the VMs in the vApp. This can be the case for example when you have VMs in an vApp that exchange high loads of data. In our case we have virtual ESXi Servers that have a vsa for shared storage and need good performance when deploying VM´s and storage vMotion etc.

When deploying several vApps from the same template it is not just to run Get-CIVM and then use the VM name returned to run Get-VM for the correlation between the VM in VCD and in vCenter, as you can see in the screendumps these two have the same name but followed with an identifier from vCD in the vSphere Client. This is also described in the vSphere blog.

The fine part is that the MoRef is unique (in the relation one vcd <-> one vcenter) so I can check on that which VMs in the vCenter belongs to the same vCloud Director vApp.

I got the code for the MoRef in this community post.

And here is my script

<#
.Synopsis
   Add an affinity rule for a vCloud Director vAPP
.DESCRIPTION
   This function takes a vApp as parameter and creates an affinity rule for them to keep them together
.EXAMPLE
   Add-CIVAppAffinity -CIVApp Green01
.NOTES
Author: Niklas Akerlund / RTS
Date: 2012-05-03
#>
function Add-CIVAppAffinity
{
    Param
    (
        # Parameter for the vAPP
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,
                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true,
                   Position=0)]
        $CIVApp,

        # If the rule should apply on a different cluster
        $Cluster = "vCD-Cluster"
    )

	$pod = Get-CIVapp $CIVApp
	if ($pod){
		$PodVMs = Get-CIVM -VApp $pod
		$VMs = @()
		$Cluster = Get-Cluster $Cluster
		Foreach ($PodVM in $PodVMs) { 
			$VMname = $PodVM.Name + "*"
			$VM =  Get-VM $VMname | where {$_.ExtensionData.MoRef.Value -eq $PodVM.ExtensionData.VCloudExtension[0].Any[0].VmVimObjectRef.MoRef}
			$VMs +=$VM
		}

		if (!(Get-DrsRule -Cluster $Cluster -Name $pod.Name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)){ 
			New-DrsRule -Name $pod.Name -Cluster $Cluster -KeepTogether $true -VM $VMs
		}else{
			Remove-DrsRule -Rule (Get-DrsRule -Cluster $Cluster -Name $pod.Name) -Confirm:$false
			New-DrsRule -Name $pod.Name -Cluster $Cluster -KeepTogether $true -VM $VMs
		}
	}
}

And when checking the cluster i can see that my DRS affinity rule has been created and the VMs have been migrated to the same host

It is not so extensive but it helps us with the case to create DRS affinity on the VMs in a particular vApp 🙂 , The Rule is deleted when the vApp is removed, I have an extra check in the script and remove it if it still exist of some reason.

As always ( or at least in my world) you should do everything in powershell/powerCLI. Now the turn comes to handling licensing in VMware vSphere.

I searched the web and found some information from Luc Dekens post and from Joe Keegan post. I also used the Onyx VMware fling to get some more functionality.

I decided to do some powershell functions and came up with the following, I have created three functions that can do some magic with your licenses

• Get-vLicense  – query the vCenter for licenses
• Add-vLicense – add a license or assign an existing license to a host/vCenter
• Remove-vLicense – remove a license that is not in use

Of course there might be other things regarding licensing i have forgot but see this as a version 0.1 and that you can give me input on what to add or change

Here you can see how the function get the information:

You have to bare with me and my paintbrush skills, but I cannot show my license keys on the Internet 🙂

I can also use a switch to just show the ones that are not used with

Get-vLicense -showUnused

I would like to move my hosts to the new license that i have that has unlimited cores

I can also in the Add function just add without assigning the license right now just use the -AddKey switch

And if I want to remove the unused license I  use the following function, It can utilize a pipeline parameter as you see

And here is the whole code for the functions:

function Get-vLicense{
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Function to show all licenses  in vCenter
 
.DESCRIPTION
Use this function to get all licenses in vcenter
 
.PARAMETER  xyz 
 
.NOTES
Author: Niklas Akerlund / RTS
Date: 2012-03-28
#>
	param (
		[Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$True, HelpMessage="Enter the license key or object")]$LicenseKey = $null,
		[Switch]$showUnused,
		[Switch]$showEval
		)
	$servInst = Get-View ServiceInstance
	$licenceMgr = Get-View $servInst.Content.licenseManager
	if ($showUnused -and $showEval){
		$licenses = $licenceMgr.Licenses | where {$_.EditionKey -eq "eval" -or $_.Used -eq 0}
	}elseif($showUnused){
		$licenses = $licenceMgr.Licenses | where {$_.EditionKey -ne "eval" -and $_.Used -eq 0}
	}elseif($showEval){
		$licenses = $licenceMgr.Licenses | where {$_.EditionKey -eq "eval"}
	}elseif ($LicenseKey -ne $null) {
		if (($LicenseKey.GetType()).Name -eq "String"){
			$licenses = $licenceMgr.Licenses | where {$_.LicenseKey -eq $LicenseKey}
		}else {
			$licenses = $licenceMgr.Licenses | where {$_.LicenseKey -eq $LicenseKey.LicenseKey}
		}
	}
	else {
		$licenses = $licenceMgr.Licenses | where {$_.EditionKey -ne "eval"}
	}
	
	$licenses
}

function Add-vLicense{
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Add New Licenses to the vCenter license manager
 
.DESCRIPTION
Use this function to add licenses  and assing to either the vcenter or the hosts
 
.PARAMETER  xyz 
 	
.NOTES
Author: Niklas Akerlund / RTS
Date: 2012-03-28
#>
param (
	$VMHost ,
	[Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$True)]$License = $null,
	[string]$LicenseKey = "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX",
	[switch]$AddKey
    )
	$LicenseMgr = Get-View -Id 'LicenseManager-LicenseManager'
	$LicenseAssignMgr = Get-View -Id 'LicenseAssignmentManager-LicenseAssignmentManager'
	if($License){
		$LicenseKey = $License.LicenseKey
		$LicenseType = $LicenseMgr.DecodeLicense($LicenseKey)
	}else{
		$LicenseType = $LicenseMgr.DecodeLicense($LicenseKey)
	}
	
	if ($LicenseType) {
		if ($AddKey){
			$LicenseMgr.AddLicense($LicenseKey, $null)
		}else{
			if ($LicenseType.EditionKey -eq "vc"){
				#$servInst = Get-View ServiceInstance
				$Uuid = (Get-View ServiceInstance).Content.About.InstanceUuid
				$licenseAssignMgr.UpdateAssignedLicense($Uuid, $LicenseKey,$null)
			} else {
				$key = Get-vLicense -LicenseKey $LicenseKey
				if($key  -and ($key.Total-$key.Used) -lt (get-vmhost $VMHost | get-view).Hardware.CpuInfo.NumCpuPackages){
					Write-Host "Not Enough licenses left"
				} else{
					$Uuid = (Get-VMhost $VMHost | Get-View).MoRef.Value
					$licenseAssignMgr.UpdateAssignedLicense($Uuid, $LicenseKey,$null)
				}
			}	
		}
	}	
}


function Remove-vLicense{
<#
.SYNOPSIS
Function to remove a licenses that is not in use in vCenter
 
.DESCRIPTION
Use this function to remove a license
 
.PARAMETER  xyz 
 
.NOTES
Author: Niklas Akerlund / RTS
Date: 2012-03-28
#>
param (
	[Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true, ValueFromPipeline=$True, HelpMessage="Enter the key or keyobject to remove")]$License
	)
	$LicObj = Get-vLicense $License 
	if($LicObj.Used -eq 0){
		$LicenseMgr = Get-View -Id 'LicenseManager-LicenseManager'
		$LicenseMgr.RemoveLicense($LicObj.LicenseKey)
	}else{
		Write-Host " The license is assigned and cannot be removed"
	}
}