2. Also known as…..
What’s New in
PowerCLI 4.1 and
5.0 in the 2nd half
of 2011
3. New in PowerCLI 5.0
Summary
• License Manager snapin
• Image Builder Snapin
• Auto Deploy Snapin
• Update Manager PowerCLI 5.0
• No change to View PowerCLI
• Support for new vSphere 5.0
features, such as Storage DRS
• Incremental updates to existing
cmdlets
5. Also new in 2nd half of 2011
• VI Property Module
• vSphere Distributed Switch
PowerCLI Snapin released as a
Fling
• PowerCLIMan
6. License Manager Snapin
• Requires vCenter 5.0 or later
• Currently contains one cmdlet, Get-
LicenseDataManager
• Add.PSSnapin
VMware.VimAutomation.License
16. AutoDeploy Snapin
• Requires vCenter 5.0 or later
• Contains cmdlets that provide an interface to
VMware Auto Deploy for provisioning physical
hosts with ESXi software
• Add.PSSnapin VMware.DeployAutomation
17. Auto Deploy & Image Builder
– where’s the GUI?
• There is no GUI (yet) for managing either Auto
Deploy or Image Builder
• Time to learn PowerShell!
• Or……
18. Image Builder and Auto Deploy PowerPack
• Alan Renouf has created a PowerGUI
PowerPack for Image Builder and Auto Deploy
• http://www.virtu-al.net/2011/09/15/image-
builder-and-auto-deploy-powerpack/
20. Update Manager PowerCLI 5.0
• Requires vCenter 5.0 or later
• Does NOT work with downlevel versions of
vCenter – similar to previous releases
• Update Manager PowerCLI 4.x will not work
with Update Manager 5.0
22. vSphere 5.0 New Features - PowerCLI Support
• Storage DRS (experimental)
• Creating virtual machines and hard disks
on datastore clusters and defining anti-
affinity rules
• ESXi Firewall
23.
24. PowerCLI 5.0 – Incremental Updates
· Cloning templates with New-Template.
· Copying files and folders from and to the guest operating system through
the Copy-VMGuestFile cmdlet.
· Joining domains through the Get-VMHostAuthentication and Set-
VMHostAuthentication cmdlets.
· Joining ESX hosts (version 4.1 and later) into an active directory through the
Get-VMHostAuthentication and Set-VMHostAuthentication cmdlets.
· Retrieving vCenter Server users and groups through the Get-VIAccount
cmdlet.
· Support for vCenter Servers in linked mode through the Connect-VIServer
cmdlet.
· Retrieving object properties through the Get-VIProperty cmdlet.
· Moving virtual appliances through the Move-VApp cmdlets.
· Importing compressed and chunked files through the Import-VApp cmdlet.
· Importing and exporting virtual appliances in OVA format.
· Support for the SSPI passthrough feature of VIX.
25. Also new in 2nd half of 2011
• VI Property Module
• vSphere Distributed Switch
PowerCLI Snapin released as a
Fling
• PowerCLIMan
26. What is a PowerShell Module?
• A collection of files containing functions, scripts etc and possibly other
files such as the manifest to make it more professional
• Stored within a folder as a subfolder of the Modules location. Can be
found via $env:PSModulePath
• Contents made accessible to the user via the Import-Module cmdlet
27. Why Bother with a PowerShell
Module?
• Makes sharing of groups of functions and scripts easy
• Simple XCOPY style deployment of the module folder either internally or
publishing to an external website
• Make your commonly used functions available to yourself without ‘Profile
Bloat’ – they are available as and when you need them from a module
28. VI Property Module
• Currently contains 47 custom VI Properties
• Expanding in number all the time
• Maintained at www.lucd.info
29. What is a VI Property?
• Create custom properties that
persist per PowerCLI session
30. VI Property Module
• New cmdlet Get-VIProperty displays VI Properties in existing
session
• Module contains VI properties for:
– Cluster
– Datastore
– Harddisk
– PhysicalNic
– Portgroup
– ScsiControler
– ScsiLun
– Snapshot
– VirtualMachine
– VMHost
Create your own and submit them for addition to the
module.
31. vSphere Distributed Switch PowerCLI cmdlets
• The no.1 most requested missing feature from
PowerCLI
• Community effort from LucD to fill the gap
• Community effort available as a module in the
PowerCLI Book
• Now released as a snapin as a VMware Fling
• So NOT supported (yet)
– Does not work with PowerCLI 5.0 (yet)
– 32bit only
35. Resources
• Image Builder – Image Builder
• How to run ESXi stateless with vSphere Auto
Deploy – Gabe’s Virtual World
• Alan Renouf on PowerScripting to talk What’s
New in PowerCLI 5.0.