Stats Toolbox – A vSphere Server Performance Counter tool

Finding out which performance counters are available on your vSphere server over which time interval, is not always an easy task. There is of course the Performance Manager entry in the VMware vSphere API Reference, but that is not always the easiest task. Let alone finding out what a specific counter actually represents.

For that reason I decided to create a tool, which I called the Stats Toolbox, that would query the vSphere server to get the actual list of counters it collects for each interval. In the tool I added some extra features that would make working with the performance counters easier.

Stats-ToolboxDuring our VMworld 2014 US breakout session I demonstrated the features of the Stats Toolbox, and I received quite some positive feedback.

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Event-O-Matic

One of the questions, related to working with vSphere events and tasks, that often appear in the PowerCLI Community, is how do we know which events to select for a query.

To make that task a bit easier, I wrote the Event-O-Matic script. It’s a GUI that allows you to pick a number of events, and the script will generate the PowerShell code, and place it in the clipboard. The Event-O-Matic script was mentioned during our VMworld 2013 US session VSVC4944.

event-o-matic-3-2

Update November 9th 2022:

  • removed PSSnapin loaded test

Update September 7th 2013:

  • added at least PowerShell v3 test
  • added PowerCLI core pssnapin loaded test

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SiW – Robust Sessions and PowerCLI

One of the new features that came with PowerShell v3 was the introduction of “robust” or “persistent” sessions. This is, imho, a huge improvement on the concept of remote sessions who were introduced in PowerShell v2.
In short, before robust sessions, you had to keep the the client, that created the session, open to keep the remote session alive. With robust sessions, the client side can be closed, and you can reconnect to the robust session, even from another client.
This new remote session concept is something that can be used to solve a number of known PowerCLI “issues”.

                        siw-icon

Siw stands for Server in Waiting. We selected that term since we liked the sound of it, no double entendre should be suspected 🙂

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VMworld 2012 Sessions – Public Voting

It’s that time of the year again I’m afraid.

While this blog tried to bring you useful PowerCLI scripts and functions throughout the year, I now have to revert into begging mode. The VMworld Call for Papers Voting is open !

If you enjoyed one or more of the blog posts here, or if I answered one of your questions in the PowerCLI Community, or if you enjoyed one of our sessions during a previous VMworld, please cast your vote on the sessions I submitted for VMworld 2012.

Session 1328 is offering the best of all worlds. It will answer all the questions you might have about Automation and vSphere. The panel includes superstars William Lam and Alan Renouf, and the master of ceremonies is none other than Pablo Roesch. You can’t go wrong with this session !

Session 1329, which I submitted together with my long-time co-presenter and co-author Alan Renouf, will be the sequel to our successful Best Practices session from last year. There will be a ton of new best practices ! When you use PowerCLI, or intend to use it, this is the session you shouldn’t miss.

Thanks for your vote 🙂

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PowerCLI at VMworld US

Last year’s sessions by Alan and myself definitely was one of the highlights of my year. And judging by the comments and scores we received, it didn’t go down that badly with the attendees either. So this year we want to “raise the bar”. We have some fantastic sessions planned and hope you will come and see some of the things we have organised.

If I had to use one word to describe our sessions this year it would be “Super”. After you have seen the sessions you will understand why.

So to give you an idea of what we have planned we decided to give you a quick outline of our sessions and also a mention some of the other PowerShell and PowerCLI based sessions at VMworld….

And don’t forget to register in time !

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