A faster way to show VM, VM-Folder, and PowerState

[morphyno]

I came across this by LucD and found it extremely usefull

http://www.lucd.info/2016/06/03/get-inventoryplus-inventory-all-vsphere-objects/

I have a following 1 liner, it works OK, but its really slow due to secondary "Get-VM" lookup for powerstate

PS /Documents/vmware/powershell> Get-InventoryPlus | where {$_.Type -eq 'VirtualMachine'} | Select Name,BluePath,@{N="PowerState";E={Get-VM -Name $_.Name | Select PowerState}}

Name             BluePath                                   PowerState

----             --------                                   ----------

goblin-pktbot-16 /morgany-sqa/moria/Block3/goblin-pktbot-16 @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-14 /morgany-sqa/moria/Block3/goblin-pktbot-14 @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-13 /morgany-sqa/moria/Block3/goblin-pktbot-13 @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-12 /morgany-sqa/moria/Block2/goblin-pktbot-12 @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-15 /morgany-sqa/moria/Block3/goblin-pktbot-15 @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-11 /morgany-sqa/moria/Block2/goblin-pktbot-11 @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-10 /morgany-sqa/moria/Block2/goblin-pktbot-10 @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-8  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block1/goblin-pktbot-8  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-7  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block1/goblin-pktbot-7  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-9  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block2/goblin-pktbot-9  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-6  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block1/goblin-pktbot-6  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-5  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block1/goblin-pktbot-5  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-4  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block0/goblin-pktbot-4  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-3  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block0/goblin-pktbot-3  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-2  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block0/goblin-pktbot-2  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

goblin-pktbot-1  /morgany-sqa/moria/Block0/goblin-pktbot-1  @{PowerState=PoweredOff}

Also, I'm not sure why the data for "PowerState" is returned as "@{PowerState=PoweredOff}" vs just "PoweredOff"

[LucD · Accepted solution]

The Select-Object cmdlet returns a specific type of object, that is why you see the funny output.

If you only want to see the value of the property, use the ExpandProperty parameter.

To make you script faster, you can switch to the Get-View cmdlet with the Property parameter.

And only use the Get-VIBlueFolderPath function.

Something like this

function Get-ViBlueFolderPath {

  [cmdletbinding()]

  param(

    [VMware.Vim.ManagedEntity]$Item

  )

  $hidden = 'Datacenters', 'vm'

  if ($Item -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualMachine]) {

    $Item.UpdateViewData('Parent')

    $parent = $Item.Parent 

  }

  elseif ($Item -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualApp]) {

    $Item.UpdateViewData('ParentFolder')

    $parent = $Item.ParentFolder

  }

  if ($parent) {

    $path = @($Item.Name)

    while ($parent) {

      $object = Get-View -Id $parent -Property Name, Parent

      if ($hidden -notcontains $object.Name) {

        $path += $object.Name

      }

      if ($object -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualApp]) {

        $object.UpdateViewData('ParentFolder')

        if ($object.ParentFolder) {

          $parent = $object.ParentFolder

        }

        else {

          $object.UpdateViewData('ParentVapp')

          if ($object.ParentVapp) {

            $parent = $object.ParentVapp

          }

        }

      }

      else {

        $parent = $object.Parent

      }

    }

    [array]::Reverse($path)

    return "/$($path -join '/')"

  }

  else {

    return $NoValue

  }

}

Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name, Parent, Runtime.PowerState |

  Select Name,

    @{N = 'BlueFolderPath'; E = {Get-ViBlueFolderPath -Item $_}},

    @{N = "PowerState"; E = {$_.Runtime.PowerState}}

[morphyno]

Thank you @LucD. This is indeed MUCH faster. My last question is, is there a better way to format the output so the titles auto-scale? I tried to pipe to "ft - AutoSize", but it looks the same

PS /home/morgany/Documents/vmware/powershell> Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name, Parent, Runtime.PowerState |                                              >> Select Name, @{N = 'BlueFolderPath'; E = {Get-ViBlueFolderPath -Item $_}},@{N = "PowerState"; E = {$_.Runtime.PowerState}} | ft -AutoSize

Name            BlueFolderPath PowerState

----            --------------                                  ----------

sentry-pktbot-1 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block0/sentry-pktbot-1 poweredOff

sentry-pktbot-2 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block0/sentry-pktbot-2 poweredOff

sentry-pktbot-3 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block1/sentry-pktbot-3 poweredOff

sentry-pktbot-4 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block1/sentry-pktbot-4 poweredOff

sentry-pktbot-5 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block2/sentry-pktbot-5 poweredOff

sentry-pktbot-6 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block2/sentry-pktbot-6 poweredOff

sentry-pktbot-7 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block3/sentry-pktbot-7 poweredOff

sentry-pktbot-8 /morgany-sqa/wilsonville/Block3/sentry-pktbot-8 poweredOff

[LucD]

For the result on screen, the Format-Table -AuotSize is the best option.

Alternatives are to show the result in a grid (Out-GridView, where you can change the column width) or to a file (ConvertTo-Csv).
Depends a bit on who the consumer of the output will be.