Queue VMware Virtual Machine vMotion using powercli

Question

I wrote this quick Powershell script where it queues vMotion of VMs and runs only 4 vMotion tasks at a time. I thought this might help someone, so you are free to modify the code as per your like.

We were moving VMs to 2 different datastore for a DR exercise overnight.

I have placed comments in the script, but if you have any questions, please comment below. I am sure this can be done in a much better way, but this was a quick thing as I had to leave it running, so the VMs are migrated overnight.

The main command that helped me was get-task.

I am not sure why I didn't have to specify Host for vMotion but VMs were migrated to correct hosts, Maybe DRS took care of that

Answer 1

Start-Transcript #import the servernames from csv file Import-Csv 'C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\RestoreDetails Queue.csv' | foreach { #check if vm already on required datastore, change the datastore name as per your environment if ((get-vm $_.host |Get-Datastore).name -ne "DataStore1" -or (get-vm $_.host |Get-Datastore).name -ne "DataStore2") { Write-Host "`nStaring vMotion session for "$_.host #Get current running tasks for Relocatin VM and check if the count is lower than 4 #I am checking for currently running tasks and with Perecentage over 0%, sometimes there are tasks that are just waiting if ((Get-Task | ?{$_.name -eq "RelocateVM_Task" -and $_.state -eq "Running" -and $_.PercentComplete -ne "0"}).count -lt "4") { Write-Host "`nLess than 4 vMotions Migrations are going" #if the count is lower than 4 then check which datastore has more freespace available if ((Get-Datastore -Name "DataStore1").freespacegb -ge (Get-Datastore -Name "DataStore2").freespacegb) { Write-Host ("`nStarting " + $_.host + " to Datastore DataStore1") #send an email Send-MailMessage -to "[email protected]" -from [email protected] -Subject ("Starting " + $_.host + " to Datastore DataStore1") -SmtpServer smtp.domain.com -DeliveryNotificationOption OnFailure, delay #start vMotion to DataStore1 get-vm -Name $_.HOST | Move-VM -Datastore DataStore1 -RunAsync } else { Write-Host ("`nStarting " + $_.host + " to DataStore2") Send-MailMessage -to "[email protected]" -from [email protected] -Subject ("Starting " + $_.host + " to Datastore DataStore1") -SmtpServer smtp.domain.com -DeliveryNotificationOption OnFailure, delay #Start vMotion to Storage DataStore2 get-vm -Name $_.HOST | Move-VM -Datastore DataStore2 -RunAsync } } else { #if more that 4 relocation tasks are running then wait for them to finish sleep 5 Write-Host "`nWaiting for current vMotions to finish..." Write-Host "`nCurrent number of vMotions:"(Get-Task | ?{$_.name -eq "RelocateVM_Task" -and $_.state -eq "Running" -and $_.PercentComplete -ne "0"}).count do { #wait 60 seconds and recheck again sleep 60 } while ((Get-Task | ?{$_.name -eq "RelocateVM_Task" -and $_.state -eq "Running"-and $_.PercentComplete -ne "0"}).count -ge "4") #Repeate the above process when vMotion tasks go lower than 4 if ((Get-Task | ?{$_.name -eq "RelocateVM_Task" -and $_.state -eq "Running" -and $_.PercentComplete -ne "0"}).count -lt "4") { Write-Host "`nLess than 4 vMotions Migrations are going" if ((Get-Datastore -Name "DataStore1").freespacegb -ge (Get-Datastore -Name "DataStore2").freespacegb) { Write-Host ("`nStarting " + $_.host + " to Datastore1") Send-MailMessage -to "[email protected]" -from [email protected] -Subject ("Starting " + $_.host + " to Datastore DataStore1") -SmtpServer smtp.domain.com -DeliveryNotificationOption OnFailure, delay get-vm -Name $_.HOST | Move-VM -Datastore DataStore1 -RunAsync } else { Write-Host ("`nStarting " + $_.host + " to Datastore2") Send-MailMessage -to "[email protected]" -from [email protected] -Subject ("Starting " + $_.host + " to Datastore DataStore1") -SmtpServer smtp.domain.com -DeliveryNotificationOption OnFailure, delay get-vm -Name $_.HOST | Move-VM -Datastore DataStore2 -RunAsync } } } } } #Check which VM's are on DR DataStore storage already Import-Csv 'C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\RestoreDetails Queue.csv' | foreach { if ((get-vm $_.host |Get-Datastore).name -ne "DataStore2" -or (get-vm $_.host |Get-Datastore).name -ne "DataStore1") { [array]$DRStorage =+ $_.host } else { [array]$NoDRStorage =+ $_.host } } Stop-Transcript