VTwinDude's Blog

Related Posts

• Power VI Configurator

  OK… script away ---

  A friend of my (Jeremy) helped write this with me learning sometime back however I cleaned it up some. It is and was a great tool in another role I use to be in. I removed list items 4-9 as we used it to setup specific performance settings for a technology/vendor product, but you do not need it for this script to help you with setting up the VI side of things. I do know that some of the PowerCLI commands are older but we had older ESX/ESXI versions we needed to cover. Also we haven’t had time to redo it with newer commands.

  We wrote this originally to help implement VI settings as and as overwrite/correct settings. So please test it. You are using this at your own risks.

  There is a step in here at the beginning to kill all VC connections… I used it for testing…
  Here is a few of the settings we targeted at each layer – single host or vCluster or vDC

  Enable Firewall Port Settings
  Disconnect Media Devices from VMs
  Modify Syslog Settings
  Create Persistent Scratch Location
  Modify Domain Name and DNS
  Modify NTP settings
  Modify Storage Settings (add, scan, rename, mount NFS share)
  Enter/Exit Host from Maintenance Mode
  Connect, Disconnect ESXi Host from vCenter
  Change Root Password
  View ESXi Logs
  Enable\Disable SSH
  Modify Networking Global Settings
  Modify Networking for vSwitch 0, 1, 2

  I would like to ask if you modify or update the Script then please share it back with us.
  Please provide feedback/comments so we can make it better and report any issues you find.

  I am not a GURU at scripting.. I just like to get creative sometimes and scripting helps with applying that creativity quickly.

  Download - PowerVIConfigurator_v2.txt

   

  Thanks
  @vTwindude

   

• Collect VM Hosts license per host

  So I was asked how to audit the VMware license in use vs portal? Meaning what we have vs what VMWare portal says we have vs what are we using. License is a big cost for most. For me I was thinking for sure there is a tool to do a compare, hmmm not that I can find. Sure you can look in your VMware portal to see what you have paid for. However if you are in the middle of a migration/upgrade it could become a mess to see what you have and how much you have paid for. So the fun begins…
  This is a very large organization with many different levels of license as well as versions. At that point I was asking if there’s a tool to compare what are allotted vs used vs portal. As you know license can be a mess to maintain but surely there’s a tool to do an audit, well not so fast. I did search the web however i did not see what I was looking for, however I was thinking, surely someone has done this. So I turned to my social media friends for help. I put out a twitt to ask about a script to put this information. Sure enough some folks started to point me to scripting, and someone had one…. Thanks Jonathan Meed.
  Requirement is to gather the following:
  
  ·         Hostname
  ·         License key assigned to the host
  ·         Name of the VC managing the host
  ·         License type
  ·         Flexibility to collect the information for multiple Virtual Centers
  
  So I got a script from Jonathan and massaged it some however I couldn’t get it to do what we needed. This was on me as I was trying to understand each piece of the script. Great Job Jonathan!
  So I did a little reading:
  API - https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk41pubs/ApiReference/vim.LicenseManager.html
  Understanding ‘Functions’ - http://www.thomas-franke.net/including-scripts-functions-modules/ 
  
  At this point I decided to just create a script. I asked a friend Matt Derk for some help, he knows scripting pretty good. In any case here is what we came up with and it works,,,, yay
  Disclaimer – We tested against VC 5.5
  
  First set the script to collect data from multiple virtual centers:
  I saw an error at first so we worked through this to stop the prompting for invalid cert.
  
  # Set to multiple VC Mode
  if(((Get-PowerCLIConfiguration).DefaultVIServerMode) -ne "Multiple") {
      Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -DefaultVIServerMode Multiple -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore -Confirm:$false | Out-Null
  }
  
  Then we wanted to allow for inputting multiple hosts:
  #Define VC hosts – IPs or FQDN
  $VChosts = @(
  "VC1.ron.com",
  "VC1.ron.com",
  "VC3.ron.com"
  );
  Write-Host "Connecting to VC Server(s)"
  
  Then connect to the hosts: We didn’t really want to prompt so the script will use the session you are logged in with. If you want to use different creds, right click and choose ‘Run As’.
  
  Connect-VIServer -Server $VChosts
  
  Then we need to define some variables for the data we want to grab
  #Define variables for license and host functions
  #API - https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk/visdk41pubs/ApiReference/vim.LicenseManager.html
  
  $servInst = Get-View ServiceInstance
  $licMgr = Get-View $servInst.Content.licenseManager
  $licAssignMgr = Get-View $licMgr.licenseAssignmentManager
  
  Now let’s throw in a function to do this work:
  
  function Get-VMHostId($Name)
  {
      $vmhost = Get-VMHost $Name | Get-View
      return $vmhost.Config.Host.Value
  }
  function Get-License($VMHostId)
  {
      $details = @()
      $detail = "" |select LicenseKey,LicenseType,Host,VC,Total,Used,ExpirationDate
      $license = $licAssignMgr.QueryAssignedLicenses($VMHostId)
      $license = $license.GetValue(0)
      $detail.VC = ([Uri]$licAssignMgr.Client.ServiceUrl).Host
      $detail.Host = $license.EntityDisplayName
      $detail.LicenseKey = $license.AssignedLicense.LicenseKey
      $detail.LicenseType = $license.AssignedLicense.Name
      $detail.Total = $license.AssignedLicense.Total
      $detail.Used = $license.AssignedLicense.Used
      $details += $detail
      return $details
  }
  
  Now run this against all hosts and puke out the data to a file. The script is setup to create the path/folders if not there.
  
  # Run Query Against All Hosts
  $vmhosts = Get-VMHost
  $details = @()
  foreach ($vmhost in $vmhosts) {
      $vmhostname = Get-VMHostId $vmhost.name
      $detail = Get-License $vmhostname
      $details += $detail
  }
  $details
  if(!(Test-Path -Path C:\Temp )){New-Item -ItemType directory -Path C:\Temp}
  write-host "output being save to C:\Temp\Host-Licenseinfo.csv"
  $details | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation C:\Temp\Host-Licenseinfo.csv
   
  I can assure you I’m no pro at this but hey it works…. J However it seems that the “expire date” is in a different area and couldn’t get it to work within one script so we created second one to grab that. I know it’s not ideal but a manual combine is better than none.
  Sample output; now you can sort and do all kinds of things with the data.
  
  
  
  
  

   

   

   

   

   

  I am sure others can make these better. Thanks for reading and happy auditing your license.

  Thanks Matt & Jonathan for your time and consideration.  

   

  Download script:  Licenseinfo-01.txt

• Vblock™ – 3 of the World Technology Leaders

  Vblock™ – 3 of the World Technology Leaders Come together (something rarely seen)

    To start out I am NOT an employee for VCE/EMC/Cisco. This is based off of my own opinions and experiences.  Now let’s get started J

  The future of technology seems to be about effectively using datacenter resources and underutilized hardware. I believe that you need to converge infrastructure components to effectively use a datacenter. To me, a Vblock™ is basically a Technology Appliance that allows organizations to raise the bar for infrastructure utilization. In order to maximize you’re spending (OPEX - operating expense) as well as your infrastructure utilization, you will have to have convergence and Vblock™ does this effectively.  I also believe that Vblock™ will allow you to build and get to a cloud model in a much faster well-organized way.

   

  What I believe and have seen with the Vblock™ is that it allows an organization to move more effectively toward a Private Cloud model as well as maintain a high-level of performance to their customers. The Vblock™ alone will NOT get you to a “cloud model” but it’s a major step in the right direction. Vblock™ allows you to have a converged infrastructure that allows you to pool storage, computing and networking to optimize datacenter infrastructure (lower TCO - total cost of ownership). Seemingly, you get better performance in a black box at a lower cost. Vblock™ has full scalability. It is flexible from storage to networking components to Cisco UCS blades & chassis (opinion - which in this day and age is one of the leaders in the industry for server hardware) and supports many different configurations. In my opinion Vblock™ technology allows you to virtualize and consolidate your systems while continuing to provide a high-level of performance that has been tested prior to running in your datacenter environment (validation of an outcome).

   

  Vblock™ (Standard components and devices based on my experiences):

  ·         Cisco UCS blade chassis 5108s.

  ·         Cisco B230s and B200s UCS Blade Models

  ·         VMax and VNX 7500 Storage Models (EMC storage devices).

  ·         Cisco networking switches (6140s & 55xx) and FCOE inside UCS blade for connectivity (Standard Vblock™)

  ·         EMC RecoverPoint™ SAN replication (Block Base) with native splitters on the storage devices.

   

  Vblock™ allows an organization to standardize on what I call a ‘complete infrastructure framework/platform’ with many different components (Compute/Network/Storage). This can simplify an organization’s support as well as help companies move away from a fragmented infrastructure. This convergence (pooling) allows you to share resources to infrastructure components at the same time. Vblock™ allows for higher density level in a datacenter which can reduce your physical footprint. I have seen where Vblock™ technology allows cost savings by reduction in hardware maintenance cost (smaller carbon footprint) as well as consolidation on the virtual side. UCS manager allows companies to profile their systems for specific settings based on what application may run and where it will run (server profiles) for fast deployments and provisioning. This builds in versatility when you have hardware failures. Finally, Vblock™ model has allowed for ease of management from my experiences.

   

  In addition, Vblock™ does enable disaster recovery plans/exercises and effective off-site recoverability to be more structured (i.e. simpler to perform) from my experience. That’s not only the Vblock™ but a major component of disaster recovery and business continuity. I have also experienced EMC RecoverPoint™ deployed with Vblock™ technology to perform state-full SAN replication on the backend with EMC storage to do block replication. This type of replication allows for a smaller RPO (recover point objective). I have also experienced EMC Data Domain® and Avamar® Grids deployed for effective virtual machine and database backup and restore capability. The replication from Vblock™ to Vblock™ allows us to focus on true “application” DRs vs. infrastructure DR opportunities.

  My Opinion:

  The Vblock™ is designed, to make IT life simpler (infrastructure framework) and more cost effective (an appliance) for an organization.

   

  The views and opinions expressed above are the author's opinions and not do not necessarily reflect his employer’s policies or positions and the author does not intend to so represent his employer.

• Chrome Remote Desktop BETA

  So I am usually a afraid to move away from IE based on all the apps that run on it. However there are some others that are making head way...

  Chrome is one that I haven't look at in a while but after seeing this, I thought may I should.. Testing results coming!

  Insert from a web page:

  The Chrome remote desktop extension lets a person remotely control another computer over the network, in this case using Chrome on a Mac to control a Windows machine also running Chrome.
  

  
  (Credit: Google) Months of work on "chromoting" have reached fruition with Google's release on Friday of a new Chrome extension to let a person on one computer remotely control another across the network.
  
  The Chrome Remote Desktop beta version
  
  "Chrome Remote Desktop BETA is the first installment on a capability allowing users to remotely access another computer through the Chrome browser or a Chromebook," the release notes said. "Chrome Remote Desktop BETA is fully cross-platform, so you can connect any two computers that have a Chrome browser, including Windows, Linux, Mac, and Chromebooks."
  
   which arrived Friday, is a browser-based equivalent of remote desktop software for conventional operating systems. Such software is handy for IT administrators managing employees' machines, people taking care of their relatives' computers, or individuals getting access to their own machines from afar.

  Using the Chrome remote desktop extension requires that the person sharing access to a computer give an access code to the person who will tap in to it remotely.
  
  (Credit: Google) It's that latter category that likely was a very important factor in the development of the technology. Google's Chrome OS is geared in part toward organizations that want to lower their computer administration costs, and remote management is an important factor when it comes to that goal.
  
  The technology right now is limited so that permission must be granted each time remote administration is activated. "This version enables users to share with or get access to another computer by providing a one-time authentication code. Access is given only to the specific person the user identifies for one time only, and the sharing session is fully secured," the release notes said.