Comments on: PowerShell Prevents Datastore Emergencies

By: boraq

boraq — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:46:21 +0000

Could you please tell me what’s this ‘$env:VMWARE_ALARM_TARGET_NAME’??

By: ap

ap — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:02:38 +0000

Is there any to create an alarm for datacenter using VI API ?

If yes, please help.

By: Protecting your Virtual Machines From “That Guy”

Protecting your Virtual Machines From “That Guy” — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:39:04 +0000

[...] http://www.vcritical.com/2009/10/powershell-prevents-datastore-emergencies/ [...]

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:20:41 +0000

No problem at all.. I also had some difficulties with getting the alarm to launch the script correctly.. Turned out that virtualcenter was launching powershell from C:\Windows\SysWOW64\WindowsPowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe instead of the normal c:\windows\system32.. So i had the execution policy set on the x86 version but not the x64 version.. food for thought.

Thanks!

Adam Savage

By: Eric Gray

Eric Gray — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:13:15 +0000

Awesome, Adam! Thanks for sharing the enhancement.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:06:28 +0000

I’ve gone through the process of trying to figure out a better VM selection process.. I pulled the gut of the VM Disk usage from another source but the rest of tathered together by me. The script will search suspect datastore for the smallest VM based on disk utilization and then check if there are any snapshots.. if there are snapshots for that particular VM they get removed the the VM gets moved to an evacuation datastore of your choosing.

Add-PSSnapin VMware.Vimautomation.Core
Connect-VIServer localhost

$vmToMove = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine | %{
New-Object PSObject -Property @{
Name = $_.Name
Host = (Get-View $_.Summary.Runtime.Host).Name
Datastore = [system.String]::Join(“,”,($_.Storage.PerDatastoreUsage | %{Get-View $_.Datastore} | %{$_.Name}))
Size = ($_.Storage.PerDatastoreUsage | Measure-Object -Property Committed -Sum).Sum
}
} | Sort Size | ?{$_.DataStore -eq $ENV:VMWARE_ALARM_TARGET_NAME} | Select Name, Datastore -first 1

$destDS = Get-Datastore yourevacuationdatastore
$snapshot = get-vm $vmtomove.name | get-snapshot
If ($snapshot -eq $NULL)
{
write-host “No Snapshots Present”}
else { write-host “Snapshots Found and Removing”
get-vm $vmtomove.name | get-snapshot | remove-snapshot -Confirm:$false }

if ($destDS) {
move-vm -VM $vmToMove.Name -Datastore $destDS -RunAsync
}
Send-MailMessage -To “whereveryouwanttogo” -From “somewhereitcamefrom” -Subject “VM Successfully Moved to Evacuation Datastore” -Body “$vmToMove has been moved to $destDS from $env:VMWARE_ALARM_TARGET_NAME” -SMTPServer “yoursmptserver”

This is working for me right now in POC.

Thank you,

Adam Savage

By: ben.neise.co.uk » Datastore alerts via Twitter

ben.neise.co.uk » Datastore alerts via Twitter — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:28:41 +0000

[...] Gray’s done some great stuff with using VMware vCenter alarms with PowerShell to automatically migrate machines. And Carter Shanklin’s got a great description of a different method, but I was after [...]

By: Provision a Thin Provisioned Standby LUN For vSphere Thin Provisioning | VM /ETC

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:14:29 +0000

[...] PowerShell Prevents Datastore Emergencies “When a datastore is about to run out of space, the fastest resolution may be to simply migrate virtual disks to another datastore. VMware Storage VMotion provides that capability with zero downtime for VMs and no disruption to end users.” [...]

By: VMTN Podcast number 70, Storage… » Yellow Bricks

VMTN Podcast number 70, Storage… » Yellow Bricks — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:33:25 +0000

[...] vCritical – PowerShell Prevents Datastore Emergencies [...]

By: Scott Sauer

Scott Sauer — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:05:18 +0000

Eric,
Here is an article I wrote that I would like to share with anyone that comes across the thread.
http://www.virtualinsanity.com/index.php/2009/10/12/get-thin-provisioning-working-for-you-in-vsphere/

Thanks!
Scott