I have been telling people for a couple of years that if they want to ensure a good future in the IT field there are two things to learn: System Center and PowerShell.  I unfortunately am quite good with one, but have been referring to myself as a scripting luddite for quite some time.  It is just something that I have not had the chance to learn.  After all, as a trainer and (Virtual) Evangelist I have not really had a lot of opportunity to get my hands on the type of environment where it would come in handy.

Recently I was in a conversation with a colleague who was complaining that he was too busy all of the time, and was really not enjoying his job because he hardly had time to breathe.  I asked him what sort of tasks he did on a regular basis, and when he told me my answer was simple: ‘If you have to do a task only once, do it manually.  If you might have to do it twice or more… automate it.’  In other words, learn PowerShell.

As I walked away from that meeting I realized that I was a hypocrite.  I built the labs for my course, From Virtualization to the Private Cloud, by hand, and every time I had to rebuild the environment I was doing it manually.  Considering the scope of what was involved I was not only being a hypocrite, I was being stupid.

Time is money, and time wasted is money lost.  I was scheduled to teach a four hour seminar on Hyper-V at the end of last week, and I decided that I was going to include some PowerShell management into that session.  I sat down and learned the basics, and that resulted not only in a better for the attendees last Friday, but also in an article titled Managing Hyper-V Virtual Machines with Windows PowerShell.  I started with some basics, how to start and stop VMs, how to check the VM memory, things like that.  I then expanded into creating a virtual machine, and adjusting the settings for it.  I was thrilled to be able to do all of this from the command line.

Okay, that was great, but now I needed to create a script that would really help me.  I knew there wouldn’t be anything on-line that would be exactly what I needed, but I was sure I would find the basics out there.  I found a great article by Neil Tucker on how he builds a couple of virtual machines for his course 50331 (Windows 7, Enterprise Desktop Support Technician).  Neil’s article gave me the basic framework for what I would come up with, including how to set variables for different VMs such as name, memory, and hard drive size.  It even went so far as to attach the proper ISO file to each VM and installs the OS using answer files.  As I already have my hard drives built I didn’t need that… but I was going to take things a little farther than Neil did.

I needed to build a script that would build nine virtual machines, each of which has its own special requirements.  I also needed to ensure that they would be connected to a virtual switch (which I would have to build as well if it wasn’t already there).

Although strictly speaking I do not need my script to create the VHDX files for me, I do want to make sure that each VM will connect to my pre-created virtual hard drive files, so I wrote the script to go through the motion of creating them in the correct place; I can then simply copy over them.

Up to now I have delivered the course on standard laptops (HP EliteBook 8570w with 32GB RAM).  However this likely would not be the case going forward, so it was important that I write the script so that I could easily provision new hardware with the course.

Goals:

1. Create a virtual switch for the course (check to see that it does not already exist)
2. Create a repository for all course virtual machines and virtual hard disk files to reside
3. Create nine virtual machines, each with their own settings for dynamic memory, CPUs.
4. Connect all virtual machines to the virtual network switch
5. (For extra credit) attach the appropriate OS DVD to each virtual machine
6. Start all of the virtual machines.

While I thought about allowing the person running the script to choose their VM names, I decided that this would make it confusing for attendees running the courseware labs, where I have set the VM names appropriately.

Here is what I came up with:

# Script to recreate the infrastructure for the course From Virtualization to the Private Cloud (R2).
# This script should be run on Windows Server 2012 R2.
# This script is intended to be run within the Boot2VHDX environment created by Mitch Garvis
# All VMs will be configured for Windows Server 2012 R2 unless otherwise stated

# Variables

$ADM = “Admin”                # VM running Windows 8.1 (for Administration)
$ADMMIN = 512MB                # Minimum RAM for Admin
$ADMMAX = 2GB                # Maximum RAM for Admin
$ADMVHD = 80GB                # Size of Hard Drive for Admin

$DC1 = “DC1”                # VM (Domain Controller) (Windows Server Core)
$DC1MIN = 512MB                # Maximum RAM assigned to DC1
$DC1MAX = 2048MB            # Maximum RAM assigned to DC1
$DC1VHD = 30GB                # Size of Hard Drive for DC1

$SQL = “SQL”                # VM (SQL Server)
$SQLMIN = 2048MB            # Minimum RAM assigned to SQL
$SQLMAX = 8192MB            # Maximum RAM assigned to SQL
$SQLCPU = 2                # Number of CPUs assigned to SQL
$SQLVHD = 200GB                # Size of Hard Drive for SQL

$STOR = “Storage”            # VM (Storage Spaces, iSCSI Target)
$STORMIN = 512MB             # Minimum RAM assigned to Storage
$STORMAX = 2048MB             # Maximum RAM assigned to Storage
$STORVHD = 30GB                # Size of first Hard Drive for Storage
$STORVHD2 = 100GB            # Size of second Hard Drive for Storage
$STORVHD3 = 100GB            # Size of third Hard Drive for Storage

$VMM = “VMM”                # VM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager)
$VMMMIN = 2048MB             # Minimum RAM assigned to VMM
$VMMMAX = 8192MB             # Maximum RAM assigned to VMM
$VMMCPU = 2                 # Number of CPUs assigned to VMM
$VMMVHD = 100GB                # Size of Hard Drive for VMM

$OM = “OpsMgr”                # VM (System Center Operations Manager)
$OMMIN = 2048MB             # Minimum RAM assigned to OpsMgr
$OMMAX = 8192MB             # Maximum RAM assigned to OpsMgr
$OMCPU = 2                 # Number of CPUs assigned to OpsMgr
$OMVHD = 100GB                # Size of Hard Drive for OpsMgr

$ORC = “Orchestrator”             # VM (System Center Orchestrator)
$ORCMIN = 2048MB            # Minimum RAM assigned to Orchestrator
$ORCMAX = 8192MB             # Maximum RAM assigned to Orchestrator
$ORCCPU = 2                 # Number of CPUs assigned to Orchestrator
$ORCVHD = 100GB                # Size of Hard Drive for Orchestrator

$SM = “SrvMgr”                 # VM (System Center Service Manager)
$SMMIN = 2048MB             # Minimum RAM assigned to Service Manager
$SMMAX = 8192MB             # Maximum RAM assigned to Service Manager
$SMCPU = 2                 # Number of CPUs assigned to Service Manager
$SMVHD = 100GB                # Size of Hard Drive for Service Manager

$VCS = “vCenter”             # VM (vSphere vCenter Cerver) (Windows Server 2008 R2)
$VCSMIN = 2048MB             # Minimum RAM assigned to vCenter
$VCSMAX = 4096MB             # Maximum RAM assigned to vCenter
$VCSCPU = 2                 # Number of CPUs assigned to vCenter
$VCSVHD = 200GB                # Size of Hard Drive for vCenter

$VMLOC = “C:\HyperV”            # Location of the VM and VHDX files

$NetworkSwitch1 = “CorpNet”        # Name of the Internal Network

$W81 = “E:\ISOs\Windows 8.1 E64.iso”            # Windows 8.1 Enterprise
$WSR2 = “E:\ISOs\Windows Server 2012 R2.iso”        # Windows Server 2012 R2
$W2K8 = “E:\ISOs\Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.iso”    # Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

# Create VM Folder and Network Switch
MD $VMLOC -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
$TestSwitch1 = Get-VMSwitch -Name $NetworkSwitch1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue; if ($TestSwitch1.Count -EQ 0){New-VMSwitch -Name $NetworkSwitch1 -SwitchType Internal}

# Create Virtual Machines
New-VM -Name $ADM -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $ADMMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$ADM.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $ADMVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $ADM -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $ADMMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $ADMMAX

New-VM -Name $DC1 -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $DC1MIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$DC1.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $DC1VHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $DC1 -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $DC1MIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $DC1MAX

New-VM -Name $SQL -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $SQLMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$SQL.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $SQLVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $SQL -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $SQLMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $SQLMAX -ProcessorCount $SQLCPU

New-VM -Name $STOR -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $STORMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$STOR.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $STORVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $STOR -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $STORMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $STORMAX

New-VM -Name $VMM -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $VMMMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$VMM.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $VMMVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $VMM -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $VMMMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $VMMMAX -ProcessorCount $VMMCPU

New-VM -Name $ORC -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $ORCMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$ORC.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $ORCVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $ORC -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $ORCMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $ORCMAX -ProcessorCount $ORCCPU

New-VM -Name $OM -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $OMMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$OM.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $OMVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $OM -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $OMMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $OMMAX -ProcessorCount $OMCPU

New-VM -Name $SM -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $SMMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$SM.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $SMVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $SM -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $SMMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $SMMAX -ProcessorCount $SMCPU

New-VM -Name $VCS -Path $VMLOC -MemoryStartupBytes $VCSMIN -NewVHDPath $VMLOC\$VCS.vhdx -NewVHDSizeBytes $VCSVHD -SwitchName $NetworkSwitch1
Set-VM -Name $VCS -DynamicMemory -MemoryMinimumBytes $VCSMIN -MemoryMaximumBytes $VCSMAX -ProcessorCount $VCSCPU

# Configure Virtual Machines
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $ADM -Path $W81
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $DC1 -Path $WSR2
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $SQL -Path $WSR2
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $STOR -Path $WSR2
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $VMM -Path $WSR2
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $OM -Path $WSR2
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $ORC -Path $WSR2
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $SM -Path $WSR2
Set-VMDvdDrive -VMName $VCS -Path $W2K8

Start-VM $ADM
Start-VM $DC1
Start-VM $SQL
Start-VM $STOR
Start-VM $VMM
Start-VM $OM
Start-VM $ORC
Start-VM $SM
Start-VM $VCS

Please remember that until a little under a week ago I had not written a single script longer than a couple of lines.  While I am sure there are efficiencies that can be improved upon, I don’t think it’s too bad for a first go at it.

So now that I am scripting, what do you think you could come up with?  The way I see it, if I could do it… anyone can!

Related articles

• Managing Hyper-V Virtual Machines with Windows PowerShell (garvis.ca)