Get VM's creation date

[GuilhermeStela]

It's possible to get the exact creation time of a VM?

I'm seeing here in the tasks and events but ain't found. Maybe some PowerCli cmdlet exclusive for reports?

[LucD]

That is a function, you have to call the function.

You could do, from the PowerCLI prompt

PS> . .\filename.ps1

PS>  Get-VMCreationTimes

With the first command you dot-source the .ps1 file, as a result the function is now known in the PS engine. Note that there is a blank between the 2 dots.

The 2nd command calls the function and should produce some results

[falconbuban]

Hi Luc, thank you very much for your reply, it's working now! I am newbie on PS and dummy at the same time . Is there a way to pipe this into file like export-csv or > c:\vmcreationdate.txt?

Thank you again guys.

[GuilhermeStela]

you can use the export-csv like this>

(your command) | export-csv c:\YourFile.csv

or

(your command) >>c:\YourFile.csv

it will work too in many cases.

[falconbuban]

Hi GuilhermeStela, it works!

This is what I did:

PS> . .\filename.ps1

PS>  Get-VMCreationTimes >> c:\MyFile.csv

Thank you guys again! Take care!

[sivaksk147]

Hi,

I am getting below error:

Attempted to divide by zero.

At line:9 char:7

+       $percentComplete = $vmevts.count / $vms.count * 100

+       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], RuntimeException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RuntimeException

Write-Progress : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'PercentComplete'. The argument is null, empty, or an element of the argument collection contains a null value.

Supply a collection that does not contain any null values and then try the command again.

At line:10 char:84

+ ... ercentcomplete $percentComplete

+                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [Write-Progress], ParameterBindingValidationException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteProgressCommand

[LucD]

Could it be that Get-VM returns 0 or 1 VMs ?

[oktoberfestbier]

Hi folks,

the ps script works, but the is  createdTime is wrong, the VM´s are only 1 or 2 months

old.

Has anybody a tip to solve this issue.

regards

Dominik

[LucD]

Which script are you using ? The one from May 15th 2012 ?

What kind of creation dates you get returned ?

[oktoberfestbier]

yes i have use the scipt from the second site of this blog

this is my output from the text file

createdTime                   name                          IPAddress                     createdBy
14.06.2012 02:13:01           xxx                     {0.0.0.0, 192.168.10.68}      xxxx/xxx             
14.06.2012 02:36:40           xxxx                     {192.168.10.175}              xxxx/xx            
14.06.2012 03:00:53           xxx

the oldest entry is form the 06.14.2012

regards

dominik

[LucD]

And what should be creation dates according to you ?

Could it be that these VMs are perhaps re-created at some point with the same display name ?

[oktoberfestbier]

the most of the vm´s are one or two years old

my retetion date form the vcenter is 180 days

The vm´s are not re-created

dominik

[robincm]

If most or all of your VMs run Windows then you'll possibly find that the OS install date corresponds fairly well with the VM creation date. I've got a Powershell/PowerCLI script that'll collect this info into a CSV file and allow you to fairly easily see how things have grown over time.

So it's not quite what you're after, but could be enough of an approximation to be useful.

See Get VMware VM creation date (kind of) on my blog.

[drowland]

it seems that the dates coorespond to a snapshot removal or something.  It is showing we created 1000's of VM's in the past couple of months..  We've created a lot, but not quite that much.

My output is as follows for one VM:

11/28/2013 1:37:19 AM          xlserver.domain.com

If I look in vCenter at the tasks for that server, I see the following at the same time:

Task: Remove snapshot

info

11/28/2013 1:37:19 AM

Remove snapshot

xlserver.domain.com

smvi

We are using NetApp's SMVI utility so I'm not sure if that is the issue.  The user for the above entry was SMVI.  I'm also seeing a lot of entries for VM's listing com.springsource.vfabric as the username...

[JuanJesusMendoz]

Hello, can you help me, how execute script please. :smileygrin:

Thanks.