Real time VMware VM resource monitoring using PowerShell

This post is about monitoring resource usage of a list of virtual machines hosted on VMware ESXi clusters using PowerCLI. Output format is given below which gets refreshed automatically every few seconds.

Prerequisites:

• VMware.PowerCLI module should be installed on the node from which you are running the script
• You can verify using: Get-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI -ListAvailable
• If not installed, you can find the latest version from the PSGallery: Find-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI
• Install the module: Install-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI

Note:

• I am using PowerCLI Version 11.0.0.10380590

Latest version of the project and code available at: github.com/vineethac/vmware_vm_monitor

Sample screenshot of output:

Notes:

VMware guidance: CPU Ready time and Co-Stop values per core greater than 5% and 3% respectively could  be a performance concern.

Hope this will be useful for resource monitoring as well as right sizing of VMs. Cheers!

References:

• http://docs.hol.vmware.com/HOL-2012/HOL-INF-04_EN/HOL-INF-04-m1/lessons/Part_1_of_4__Performance_101_-_vSphere_Performance_Basics_-_CPU__C__.html
• http://virtualization.solutions/2018/02/04/performance-monitoring-cpu/