Chapter 1. Introduction to PowerCLI

Have you ever had to create 100 virtual machines in a really short period of time, change a setting on all of your hosts, or make an advanced report for your boss to show how full the hard disks of your virtual machines are? If you have, you know that performing these tasks using the vSphere client will take a lot of time. This is where automation can make your job easier. VMware vSphere PowerCLI is a powerful tool that can perform these tasks and much more. And the best thing is that it is free!

VMware vSphere PowerCLI is a command-line interface distributed as a Microsoft Windows PowerShell snap-in. You can use PowerCLI to automate your vSphere hosts, virtual machines, virtual networks, storage, clusters, vCenter Servers, and more.

In this chapter, you will learn:

• Downloading and installing PowerCLI

• Modifying the PowerShell execution policy

• Connecting and disconnecting servers

• Using the credential store

• Retrieving a list of all of your virtual machines

• Retrieving a list of all of your hosts