PowerShell CmdLet Response Values for VM and Host Status in SCVMM

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Clik here to view.For those Virtual Machine Administrators who would like to leverage the PowerShell engine and the SCVMM CmdLets for management outside the SCVMM console, we have these options documented in the following guides:

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Cmdlet Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=58e79a68-cea8-4e73-840f-cdd8feb9de87

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Cmdlet Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=08a9eeb9-86ff-4a4f-8dfa-165bd701aba9

Often users will want to build upon these cmdlets to create their own custom queries for collecting data related to the state of Hosts and Virtual machines for reporting purposes or similar reasons. For example, I was recently working with a user who wanted to create custom queries with the PowerShell engine to perform tasks such as capturing information for a running virtual machine, weeding out duplicate virtual machine records, or simply wanting another format for viewing interval-based lists for Virtual Machines or Hosts in specific states. To do this, it would be helpful to understand what all of the possible values are of the “Status” option returned by the get-vm and get-host commands. The following is a list of response options for Virtual Machine and Host “Status” when using the “Get-VM” and “Get-Host” CmdLets:

Cmdlet response parameters for VM Status

CreationFailed
CustomizationFailed
Deleting
DeletingCheckpoint
HostNotResponding
IncompleteVMConfig
MergingDrives
MigrationFailed
Missing
P2VCreationFailed
V2VCreationFailed
Paused
PoweringOff
PowerOff
RecoveringCheckpoint
CheckpointFailed (Checkpoint action failed)
Restoring
Running
Saved
Saving
Starting
Stored
TemplateCreationFailed (Sysprep Failed)
UnderCreation
UnderMigration
UnderTemplateCreation (Sysprepping...)
UnderUpdate
Unsupported (Unsupported Undo Disk)
UpdateFailed

Cmdlet response for Host Status

Adding
NotResponding
Reassociating
Removing
Updating
Pending
MaintenanceMode
NeedsAttention
OK
Limited

NOTE: Items in parentheses are only explanations and not part of the response.

Examples of Usage

Use of these status responses can be implemented in a CmdLet incorporated with a WHERE statement as in the syntax example below:

Get-VM -VMMServer "vmmserver" | where {$_.Status -eq "VALUE"}

For example, the command below queries a VMM server for information related to virtual machines in a running state and redirects the responses into a text file called Running.txt:

Get-VM -VMMServer "stevethvmm.contoso.local" | where {$_.Status -eq "Running"}>C:\VM-Queries\Running.txt

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Clik here to view.