There are plenty of examples on the Internet to get you started with the VI Toolkit for Windows. Check out these sites to get started:

Start at the VMware Community site for the Windows Toolkit for great examples and a little help from some friends: http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/windows_toolkit/
There are also some good example scripts and resources floating around, such as:

http://vmetc.com/2008/08/27/powershell-scripting-examples-for-vmware-virtual-infrastructure/
http://www.peetersonline.nl/
http://www.ivobeerens.nl/?p=106
http://www.vmguru.com/

Not a hard-core scripter? Grab this handy tool for a little GUI on your PowerShell, and extend it with the VMware Infrastructure PowerPack 2.0

What tools or examples are you using to extend the power of PowerShell into your Virtual Infrasturucture?  Leave a comment to share!

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When it comes to reporting there are a ton of options available.  The solution you choose will be dependent on your environment and the tools you already have in place.  Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMB’s) often do not have full blown, network-wide monitoring and management solutions, so VMware-specific solutions are often a great fit.  There are several examples beyond my simple script, and many are free.  The short list includes: Mightycare Solutions MCS StorageView 1.1, Rich Garsthagen’s VCplus, and Rob de Veij’s RVTools.

There are many other mid-tier solutions – both enterprise-wide and VMware specific – constantly emerging as the virtualization ecosystem matures.  Offerings from ManageIQ, Embotics, Veeam, V-Kernel, Zenoss, Hyperic, and others are increasingly able to provide fresh and relevant data on what is happening under the covers in your virtual environment.

Larger IT shops most likely have a systems monitoring solution easily capable of reporting this – think offerings from the likes of Microsoft, Altiris,  BMC, or CA.  The trick in these solutions is narrowing down the information to your virtualized resources and getting the information to the right teams.  Customized reports using fields such as the BIOS Vendor string can help show only servers running VMware, for example.  As a side note, the Vendor BIOS string can also come in handy when applying Group Policies (GPO), allowing you to filter policies for only virtualized resources (disabling screen savers on Windows guests through GPO is a good example of this).

And don’t forget, we’re not reporting for reporting sake.  We’re after relevant information that allows us to be more efficient and proactive in the overall goals of our environments.  Good reporting identifiies areas in need of improvement, and smart system administrators look for creative ways to improve their systems efficiency.

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