On Monday VMware announced the complete list of vExpert 2014. This year 754 people were named as vExpert. I am one among them!! humbled!!.

For those unknown with the term: “vExpert” is not a technical certification or a general measure of VMware expertise. The annual VMware vExpert title is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year. The title is awarded to individuals (not employers) for their commitment to sharing their knowledge and passion for VMware technology above and beyond their job requirements. Here is the complete list of vExperts 2014.

If you feel you have contributed to the VMware community and did not apply for vExpert, good news.. the Q2 applications are already open at http://www.jotformpro.com/form/40285638168967. Good luck!

Its always a time consuming job to find out the LUN is FREE, RDM or VMFS. The following script will help to get the details of LUNs from hosts in a cluster and will tell us the LUN is VMFS, RDM or FREE.

If the LUN is an RDM, we can see on which VM RDM is mapped. And if the LUN has VMFS volume, the datastore name will be displayed. Also the script provides the details like LUN number, Capacity and naa id (Canonical Name).

The CSV file that is produced by the script looks like this. In this example cluster has four hosts (esx1,esx2,esx3 and esx4), four LUNs (0,1,2 and 13) are shared among them.

You can see there are four values for TYPE.

1. VMFS :- VMFS volume (datastore)
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This post is to publish the enhanced version of the script PowerCLI sccript for exporting VM details to HTML. This version has the following features added.

1. Report will be sent as e-mail in HTML format.
2. Added Hyperlink to the vCenter Web Client to login.
3. Each VM will have the Hyperlink to the corresponding VM Console.

The output that is produced by the script looks like this

Notes:
1. Hyperlinks will work only on vCenters with vSphere version 5.1 or above.
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We have strict logon policy on VMware Management servers like vCenter, View connection brokers etc. We have been looking for a solution to get alerts when someone RDP to the Management Servers (all are Windows 2008/2012).

Combination of Windows Task Scheduler and PowerShell script did the tick.

1. The following Powershell script “Get-RDPUser.ps1” will get the last terminal server (RDP) session details and send e-mail to the team in HTML table format.

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Cloud Cred is a professional peer-based ranking system that makes it easy to identify the most credible, up-to-date and follow-worthy experts on cloud computing. Participants earn points for activities that demonstrate cloud knowledge, which is expressed as a numerical Cloud Cred score and a level of mastery. Achieving a certain Cloud Cred score also unlocks various rewards and incentives.
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On May 21, VMware executives Pat Gelsinger and Bill Fathers will unveil a new cloud service that will seamlessly extend your data center to the cloud.
Find more details here.

http://www.vmware.com/now.html

Its a tiny script to find the IP address, DNS and WINS server of a windows VM. Its an example for invoking guest scripts through PowerCLI.

[crayon lang=”powershell”]

Connect-VIServer vcenterserver1

get-vm -Name vmname | %{
$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser “test” -GuestPassword “test” -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText “netsh interface ipv4 show addresses” -HostUser “test1” -hostpassword “test1”
$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser “test” -GuestPassword “test” -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText “netsh interface ipv4 show dnsservers” -HostUser “test1” -hostpassword “test1”
$_.Name; $_ | Invoke-VMScript -GuestUser “test” -GuestPassword “test” -ScriptType Bat -ScriptText “netsh interface ipv4 show winsservers” -HostUser “test1” -hostpassword “test1”
}

[/crayon]

By adding few parameters to View Client shortcut we can save some time daily while connecting to the desktop. Follow the below mentioned steps if the domain login credential for View desktop and local machine are same.

1. Right click the View Client shortcut and select Properties.
2. If the View client installation is done at the default directory then the Target will be like this.

“C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Client\bin\wswc.exe”

Append parameters  -loginascurrentuser, -server, -desktopname  and -interactive to Target.
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