PowerCLI

Along with vSphere CLI, vMA, and vSphere SDK for Perl (bundled with CLI), PowerCLI is the three offerings from VMware to manage host remotely.

PowerCLI is a powerful command line tool that lets you automate all aspects of vSphere management, including network, storage, VM, guest OS and more. PowerCLI is distributed as a Windows PowerShell snapin, and includes more than 230 PowerShell cmdlets, along with documentation and samples.

PowerCLI runs on customized Windows PowerShell.

It connects to vCenter server or host directly. via: Connect-VIServer <host or vCenter address>.

PowerCLI works on:

• Virtual Switch
• Port Group
• Data Center
• Data Store
• DRS Rules
• Folder
• Snapshot
• Cluster
• Resource Pool
• Security
• VM
• Host
• VM Invoked