Moving VMs to folders appearing in multiple data centers

[vadm168]

vSphere 6.5

I'd like to organize my VMs using folders named after business groups. Because we have multiple data centers, same folder name will appear more than once under vCenter. For example, a "IT" folder will appear at every data center. Because of the amount of VMs I need to move, I try to use PowerCLI to move them but I have a hard time telling it to move to the "IT" folder in the data center it's in.

PowerCLI C:\> Move-VM "it1" -Destination "IT"

Move-VM : 2/27/2019 4:28:59 PM  Move-VM         The specified parameter 'Destination' expects a single value, but your name criteria 'IT' corresponds to multiple values.

How do I make it recognize it's the "IT" folder in the data center the VM is in? I was trying to use Get-Folder to find the unique ID for the folder but I still can't tell which "IT" folder in the output is for the particular data center.

Thanks,

[daphnissov]

Use the -Location flag to specify the parent folder.

[vadm168]

Hi daphnissov,

Thanks for the prompt reply. I am not sure what you meant by -location flag which I don't see in the Move-VM cmdlet as an option. All these folders' parents are 'vm'.

PowerCLI C:\> Get-Folder -Name "IT*" | Select-Object name,id,Parent

Name    Id                  Parent

----    --                  ------

ITC   Folder-group-v14939 vm

ITC   Folder-group-v14940 vm

ITC   Folder-group-v14941 vm

ITAP Folder-group-v15324 vm

ITAP Folder-group-v15327 vm

ITC   Folder-group-v16109 vm

I was hoping to pass the "Id" value to Move-VM's -Destination argument but it does not accept it.

Move-VM : 2/27/2019 6:00:00 PM  Move-VM

Could not find VIContainer with name 'Folder-group-v14941'.

thanks,

[daphnissov]

What version of PowerCLI do you have installed?

[vadm168]

Hi daphnissov,

PowerCLI C:\> Get-PowerCLIVersion

PowerCLI Version

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

   VMware PowerCLI 6.5 Release 1 build 4624819

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

Component Versions

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

   VMware Cis Core PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624453

   VMware VimAutomation Core PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624450

   VMWare ImageBuilder PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4561891

   VMWare AutoDeploy PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4561891

   VMware Vds PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624695

   VMware Cloud PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624821

   VMware HA PowerCLI Component 6.0 build 4525225

   VMware HorizonView PowerCLI Component 7.0.2 build 4596620

   VMware Licensing PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624822

   VMware PCloud PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624825

   VMware Storage PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624820

   VMware vROps PowerCLI Component 6.5 build 4624824

   VMware vSphere Update Manager PowerCLI 6.5 build 4540462

Thanks,

[vadm168]

I've updated PowerCLI to the latest. Now Move-VM has

     [-InventoryLocation <FolderContainer>]

However, I still can't find a way to uniquely identify the folder I want to move to because there are more than one folder with the same name at different datacenters.

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

Try this great function by LucD​ as I've used it in situations like yours often. Also, FYI, in the future this sort of thing should go in the PowerCLI sub-forum (where you're likely to be helped by Luc directly).

[vadm168]

I am sure the proposed solution would work but I've decided to rename the folders with the same name. Not sure why it's not built-in to have an easy way to specify a folder regardless how unique its name is.

Thanks,