Issue Pulling Down Annotations

[Stampede]

I have a script I've been patching together to export a full run down on the state of my vCenter server and all it's moving parts. For some reason I can't seem to find how to add the annotations to my script. Every way I've tried results in a blank field.

Here's my script:

$regIPv4 = '(?:(?:1\d\d|2[0-5][0-5]|2[0-4]\d|0?[1-9]\d|0?0?\d)\.){3}(?:1\d\d|2[0-5][0-5]|2[0-4]\d|0?[1-9]\d|0?0?\d)'

Get-VM | Select Name, @{N='HostName';E={$_.Guest.HostName}}, @{N="IP addr";E={[string]::Join(',',($_.Guest.IPAddress | where{$_ -match $regIPv4}))}}, NumCpu, MemoryGB, Notes, PowerState | Export-Csv -path "c:\temp\vCenter.csv" -NoTypeInformation

The one annotation script  I got working exports everything in a separate line. So there are like 5 different annotation fields for each VM, and each one gets it's own line. I'm trying to get them all to populate in a single line per VM, and trying to integrate this code to my existing script.

Get-VM | Get-Annotation | Select @{N="VM";E={$_.AnnotatedEntity.Name}},Name,Value | Export-Csv -path "c:\temp\Annotate.csv" -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture

[LucD]

It would be easier if you first determine which Custom Attributes you want to include in the report.

You can get these with the Get-CustomAttribute cmdlet (use the TargetType VirtualMachine).

Once you have your selection of custom attributes, you can mention them on the Get-Annotation cmdlet on the CustomAttribute parameter.

I'm not sure I understand how you want the report to look.

Could you perhaps provide a mockup ?

[Stampede]

Hi LucD,

  The report is just a basic CSV that when opened in excel has each VM property on the top row and then each VM populates this on a single line. Here's an example:

Name        IP          CPU    Memory     State

VM1    192.168.0.2     2          4             Off

VM2     192.168.0.3     4          8            On

I want to get each Annotation field in there, as an example I have Application, CERT Location and Database as three separate fields. If I were to add them to the existing document shown above it would look like this:

Name        IP          CPU    Memory     Application     CERT Location     Database     State

VM1    192.168.0.2     2          4               Jumper                 Totowa              SQL           Off

VM2     192.168.0.3     4          8              Jumper2               Brigsfield            SQL          On

Right now when I run a script like:

Get-VM | Get-Annotation | Select @{N="VM";E={$_.AnnotatedEntity.Name}},Name,Value | Export-Csv -path "c:\temp\vAnnotations.csv" -NoTypeInformation

The output comes out:

"VM",                         "Name",          "Value"

"VM01",     "Application",            ""

"VM01",     "CERT Location",      ""

"VM01",     "Database",               ""

"VM01",     "Prod Location",          ""

What should I do to have each item populate a single line? We have a ton of VM's so this method would just make things difficult to read, and result in an incredibly long document.

Thanks,

[LucD · Accepted solution]

Try something like this

$targetCA = 'Application','CERT Location','Database','Prod Location'

$report = @()

foreach($vm in Get-VM){

    $row = [ordered]@{

        VM = $vm.Name

    }

    Get-Annotation -Entity $vm | where{$targetCA -contains $_.Name} | %{

        $row.Add($_.Name,$_.Value)

    }

    $report += New-Object PSOBject -Property $row

}

$report | Export-Csv 'c:\temp\vAnnotations.csv' -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture

[Stampede]

Thanks so much for your help LucD. This is spot on.

Now to combine it all together with my previous script!! Thanks again!

[Stampede]

Actually I'll ask one more question, since I'm so close to the perfect output.

I keep getting a bad output, "System.Collections.Hashtable", on one of the data points I am looking to add to this spreadsheet. Is there an easier way to pull down the IPv4 address?

$targetCA = 'Application','CERT Location','Database','Prod Location'
$report = @()
 
foreach($vm in Get-VM){
    $row = [ordered]@{
        VM = $vm.Name
        CPU = $vm.NumCpu
        RAM = $vm.MemoryGB
        Notes = $vm.Notes
        PowerState = $vm.PowerState
        IPAddress = @{N="IP Address";E={@($_.guest.IPAddress[0])}} 
     
    }
    Get-Annotation -Entity $vm | where{$targetCA -contains $_.Name} | %{
        $row.Add($_.Name,$_.Value)
    }
    $report += New-Object PSOBject -Property $row
    
}
 $report | Export-Csv 'c:\temp\vSphere.csv' -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture

[LucD]

Try like this

$targetCA = 'Application','CERT Location','Database','Prod Location' 

$report = @() 

foreach($vm in Get-VM) { 

    $row = [ordered]@{ 

        VM = $vm.Name 

        CPU = $vm.NumCpu 

        RAM = $vm.MemoryGB 

        Notes = $vm.Notes 

        PowerState = $vm.PowerState 

        IPAddress = $vm.guest.IPAddress[0]

    } 

    Get-Annotation -Entity $vm | where{$targetCA -contains $_.Name} | %{ 

        $row.Add($_.Name,$_.Value) 

    } 

    $report += New-Object PSOBject -Property $row 

} 

$report | Export-Csv 'c:\temp\vSphere.csv' -NoTypeInformation -UseCulture 

[Stampede]

Wow that was easy ,

Thanks again LucD, your help has really been invaluable.

[corneham]

Brilliant script LucD. How do you bulk Import contents of vsphere.csv file into a migrated batch of the VM in vSphere 6 ?

[LucD]

What would be in the CSV file?