VMware vSphere PowerCLI provides a Windows Powershell interface to the VMware vSphere and vCloud and the SRM APIs. VMware vSphere PowerCLI includes numerous cmdlets, sample scripts, and a function library. PowerCLI is a command-line and scripting tool built on Windows PowerShell, and provides more than 400 cmdlets for managing and automating vSphere and vCloud.
This release of vSphere PowerCLI introduces a number of new capabilities and expands on the existing cmdlets introducing cmdlets for vCenter Site Recovery Manager and providing further management of the VMware vSphere and VMware vCloud Director products.
Using the Connect-SRMServer and Disconnect-SRMServer you are now able to connect to vCenter SRM and access all public APIs available, use of the $global:DefaultSrmServers object properties and methods after connection allow for access to recovery group and protection group automation.
Sample Scripts for Managing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with VMware vSphere PowerCLI
PowerShell Plus is a single integrated development environment that maximizes productivity by providing configurable tool windows, a ribbon bar, a full featured editor and an embedded interactive console. It’s the most advanced Interactive Development Environment for PowerShell available today. Designed to help administrators and developers quickly learn and master Windows PowerShell, it also dramatically increases the productivity of expert users.Windows PowerShell is Microsoft’s command line shell and scripting language. PowerShell is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and helps in system administration. By providing full access to COM (Component Object Model) and WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation), PowerShell enables administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems.
Administrators can manage the computers in the enterprise and perform administrative tasks from the command line using built-in cmdlets, which are specialized .NET classes. Unlike most other command line interfaces, PowerShell commands have been standardized using a verb-noun naming convention known as a cmdlet. This convention provides a clear description of the cmdlet, and enables access to different Windows components like the registry, file system, services, processes, and others. There are sufficient cmdlets to support most administrative activities.
VMware View PowerCLI cmdlets are provided by a dll, which is installed as part of the VMware View Connection Server (Server\bin\PowershellServiceCmdlets.dll) under the VMware Connection Server installation). This dll, once registered with PowerShell, allows all VMware View PowerCLI cmdlets to be run on the VMware Connection Server.
This technical paper covers the integration of VMware View with Windows PowerShell and PowerCLI.
With the latest release of PowerCLI (4.1.1) VMware has introduced a real cool new commandlet.
Get-EsxTop exposes esxtop functionality. The default parameter set is CounterValues. The Counter parameter filters the specified statistics. To retrieve all available counters, use the CounterInfo parameter set. The properties of each counter are returned through the Fields property (an array) of the CounterInfo output object. You can also retrieve stats topologies using the TopogyInfo parameter set. This information contains either inventory data that does not change or a counter instance structure describing the relationship between different counter instances.
This PowerPack extends PowerGUI with a set of folders, nodes, links and actions that allow you to manage HP Virtual Connect Modules used in the c class blade chassis. The powerpack utilises the ssh command line tool plink to administer the virtual connect remotely and securely. The thick client experience gives an administrator more power to customise day-to-day tasks when compared with the standard web interface. Using the methods demonstrated in this pack, an administrator can customise actions to suit their environment and ease the burden around supporting Vitrual Connect Domains.The vSphere PowerCLI Administration Guide provides information about using the VMware vSphere PowerCLI cmdlets set that ships with vSphere PowerCLI for managing, monitoring, automating, and handling life‐cycle operations for VMware vSphere components—virtual machines, datacenters, storage, networks, and so on.
It's is intended for anyone who needs to use vSphere PowerCLI. The information in the PDF is written for administrators who are familiar with virtual machine technology and Windows PowerShell.
There are two categories of users for vSphere PowerCLI: Basic administrators can use PowerShell commands included in vSphere PowerCLI to manage their VMware infrastructure from the command line and Advanced administrators can develop PowerShell scripts that may be reused by other administrators or integrated into other applications.
Scott Herold is happy to announce the release of the vEcoShell 1.2.6. It’s out of beta and officially has been deemed as a stable release. The list of features is quite limited, but the biggest change is multi session management which makes copying and pasting from the web and PS1 files possible. Under the hood every single script in the function library was re-written from scratch. Scott also has transferred the community homepage of The vEcoShell Initiative to Vizioncore’s vCommunity. 
What's New with 1.2.6?
•Completely rewritten PowerPack to support VMware PowerCLU 4.0 Update 1 and its ability to manage connections to multiple $viServer objects.
•Ability to copy and paste code from "PowerShell Code" tab directly into standalone PS1 files (Will still need to Add-PSSnapin and Connect-VIServer for script to function).
•Ability to copy and paste code snippets from the internet and they will work without needing to add the $managedHost.connection code everywhere.
Download the latest version of vEcoShell and additional PowerPacks here.
Scott Herold about the GA: I am happy to announce that the 1.2.6 version of vEcoShell is now available on the Downloads Page. This update brings us into full compatibility with VMware PowerCLI 4.0 U1. In addition, we have decided to remove the product from beta and have provided our first stable release , which has been rigourously tested by the Vizioncore QC team. vEcoShell will remain Freeware, and continue to have a community support policy. The major difference in 1.2.6 is in how connections to multiple vCenter or ESX Servers are managed. In previous versions, vEcoShell maintained all session management and required custom code in nearly all of it's scripts to function properly. These scripts could not run externally to vEcoShell, so the PowerShell Code tab provided limited value. With the 1.2.6 release, vEcoShell now lets PowerCLI manage all connections. This means we were able to remove all custom code from our script library. Nearly every script that is in vEcoShell today can be run externally. Simply copy a code block from the "PowerShell Code"...
