IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to use PowerGUI and the VMware PowerPack with PowerCLI 4.1 or later, you can download the new beta version of the PowerPack here. You must manually uninstall the existing VMware PowerPack before you install the beta version.
Synopsis:
This PowerPack extends the PowerGUI with a set of folders, nodes, links and actions that allow you to manage your VMware vSphere infrastructure.
Requirements:
VMware vSphere PowerCLI 4.0U1
PowerGUI 2.3.0.1503 or later
Optional:
Quest AD cmdlets
Visio 2003 SP3, Visio 2007 SP2 or Visio 2010 or later (Note: You must open and close Visio at least once prior to using the Visio functionality in this PowerPack)
Supported features:
• Management of multiple VMware vSphere, Virtual Center, ESX and ESXi hosts
• Single sign-on to multiple hosts using the same credentials
• Ability to browse through inventory hierarchies on Virtual Center
• Ability to view topological data for any managed server
• Ability to view charts for virtual machines, datastores and resource configurations
• Management of datacenters, clusters, resource pools, hosts, folders, virtual machines, templates, snapshots, networks, datastores, files, tasks and log files
• Automatic generation of multiple infrastructure diagrams in Visio (vDiagrams)
• Automatic generation of foldable HTML Reports (vReports)
Release notes:
• There are two downloads to choose from for this release. The main download that is available through the Download button above or via the VMware.VIToolkit.powerpack link in the Downloads section on the right specifically requires VMware PowerCLI version 4.0 U1. If you are using VMware PowerCLI 4.1 or later, you can download a beta version of the PowerPack that requires PowerCLI 4.1 or later. This download is available in the Downloads section on the right via the VMware.PowerCLI.4.1.powerpack link.
• This main release is only tested with PowerGUI. It may work with the Virtualization EcoShell, but that is not guaranteed. Users who are still using Virtualization EcoShell should transition to PowerGUI 2.3 as soon as possible. The only difference in functionality between the two environments is that you will see progress dialogs when generating vDiagrams while using it in PowerGUI that do not appear in the Virtualization EcoShell. That difference aside, the PowerPack should provide an identical experience in either environment, but it is only supported in PowerGUI. The beta release with PowerCLI 4.1 support will not work in the Virtualization EcoShell product.
How to install:
1. Download and install the VMware vSphere PowerCLI 4.0 U1 release.
2. Download the VMware.VIToolkit.powerpack file that is attached to this article.
3. Open the PowerGUI Admin Console.
4. In the PowerGUI Admin Console, right-click the root node and select the Import menu command.
5. Import the VMware.VIToolkit.powerpack file that you downloaded in step 2.
6. Expand the "VMware" folder.
7. Select the "Managed VMware Hosts" node and use the "Add connection..." action to start adding the VMware hosts you want to manage with the VMware PowerPack.
8. Once you have added VMware hosts that you will manage, use any of the subnodes of the Managed VMware Hosts node to manage VMware objects or the host itself.
How to upgrade:
1. Open the PowerGUI Admin Console.
2. In the PowerGUI Admin Console, select File | PowerPack Management. This opens the PowerPack Management dialog.
3. Select the VMware PowerPack in the list of installed PowerPacks and click on the Check for Update button. If an update is available, this will prompt you to upgrade and walk you through the necessary steps to bring your VMware PowerPack up to date.
Subscribe to updates to the PowerPack Library if you want to be notified whenever a PowerPack is published or updated (includes documentation updates), or watch the Poshoholic blog for news.
Revision history:
Jan 10, 2011 (2.4.1.4)
- Updated to the version that ships with PowerGUI 2.3
- Added a beta version of the PowerPack with PowerCLI 4.1 support
- Removed the dependency on a separate download of the VESI_Visio.vss file and updated the PowerPack to automatically generate that file if it does not exist
July 15, 2010 (2.4.0)
- Added Visio 2010 support
- Added charts to PowerPack
- Renamed the VESI_Visio.vss file as "Virtualization Visio Stencil.vss"
- Fixed various minor defects
Aug 20, 2009 (2.2.9)
- Added Networking links (Virtual Switches / Port Groups / Physical Adapters / Network Policy Info)
July 14, 2009 (2.2.8)
- updated PowerPack file to new format with shared scripts
- improved performance by moving function libraries into shared scripts
- fixed defect preventing vReport from working in some scenarios (specifically Managed Hosts)
- fixed defect preventing some dynamic nodes from showing up under standalone ESX and ESXi servers
- updated icon for PowerPack
- included the following improvements that were previously only available in the EcoShell product:
- fixed vReport conditional statements to also function with vSphere
- fixed version check statement in Managed host dynamic node to properly detect Datacenters and Clusters
- added proper version checks to provide basic support for PowerCLI, vSphere 4 and ESX Server 4
- added vReport actions for VirtualCenters, Resource Pools, Datacenters, Clusters, Hosts, Virtual Machines and Snapshots. This allows you to generate foldable reports for your VMware Infrastructure environment
- updated vDiagram support so that it works for Datacenters, Clusters or Hosts and it is no longer dependent on clusters being used in an environment
- added ability to control how many VMs should appear in a vDiagram before an additional line is added
- added Generate vDiagram... action to hosts
- fixed localization problems with Generate vDiagram action
- added Visio 2003 SP3 support to vDiagram script
- fixed many minor defects elsewhere in the PowerPack (of note, you can now browse log files for standalone hosts and you can now manage multiple servers using the same account name but different passwords)
March 9, 2009 (2.1.5)
- added icons to the tree as well as the items in the grid.
- fixed a few minor defects that could occur before you connected to a host.
- added vDiagram actions to datacenter and cluster objects.
February 1, 2009 (2.1.0)
- significantly improved performance when loading datacenters and clusters.
- added top-level container nodes to facilitate viewing objects without having to browse into the Managed Hosts node.
- fixed ability to browse into log files from hosts.
- corrected a few implementation issues in the hierarchy browsing node.
- added catch statement to catch benign exception thrown by Disconnect-VIServer when called from within PowerGUI.
- added links to allow you to browse from datastores to VMs or hosts.
- re-added VMotion action for VMs (this had to be removed for 2.0 until we could properly bring it back in 2.1).
- fixed several other minor defects.
January 6, 2009 (2.0.3)
- fixed regex string comparison issue that could prevent connections from working properly in some cases.
January 5, 2009 (2.0.2)
- removed workarounds and updated required PowerGUI version to 1.6.0.634 (PowerGUI 1.6 RTM included a few fixes that were previously worked around in this PowerPack; those workarounds are no longer required so they have been removed and the PowerGUI requirement has been bumped to 1.6.0.634).
December 22, 2008 (2.0.1)
- fixed upgrade issues from 1.x (2.0.0 used to leave intact some outdated 1.x links and actions, 2.0.1 is removing them).
December 19, 2008 (2.0.0)
- reorganized the PowerPack structure to facilitate easier management of multiple hosts and to allow users to retrieve objects from one or more of the hosts they are managing whether they are already connected or not
- added support for browsing the VMware Inventory hierarchy (includes Hosts and Clusters, Virtual Machines and Templates, Networks and Datastores), including being able to browse directly into the file system on the datastores
- added many new links and actions
- exposed many more VMware Infrastructure objects through topological views and through integration in the hierarchy
- improved the performance of many nodes, links and actions
- added single sign-on support (note that connecting to multiple hosts using the same username but different passwords is currently not supported, but we are working on that and will provide support for this soon)
- tested management against Virtual Center 2.0, ESX 3.0x and 3.5, ESXi 3.5 and Virtual Server 2.0 (note: management of Virtual Center 2.0 requires version 1.0 of the VMware VI Toolkit)
- and more!
July 30, 2008 (1.1.1)
- fixed Virtual Machines / Snapshots nodes
July 30, 2008 (1.1.0)
- updated for VI Toolkit RTM, added ability to change connection properties, and a few other links and actions
May 13, 2008 (1.0.5)
- added support for multiple connections and automated configuration restore
April 11, 2008 (1.0.4)
- had to get back to "$($env:USERPROFILE)\Local Settings\Application Data\Quest Software\PowerGUI\Quest.PowerGUI.VMware.Config.xml" - LOCALAPPDATA is not a valid env variable on XP
April 11, 2008 (1.0.3)
- now it uses "$($env:LOCALAPPDATA)\Quest Software\PowerGUI\Quest.PowerGUI.VMware.Config.xml" as the configuration file path - which should evaluate fine on any OS
- changed default connection port to 443
April 7, 2008 (1.0.1)
- fixed the issue which lead to the Actions not being displayed for the Connect node (and thus not letting you actually connect to the virtual infrastructure)
April 4, 2008 (1.0.0)
- Initial release
Screencasts:
Coming soon...
Screenshots:
|
|
 |
|
