Mastering VMware vSphere™ 4

14.3. Automating with PowerShell and PowerCLI

In late 2006, Microsoft released the release candidate version of a product code-named Monad, the product that would later become PowerShell. PowerShell is an object-oriented scripting language that seeks to combine the simplicity of the UNIX command line with the ability to deal with complex objects—not just text but any kind of object. Since its release, PowerShell has become an important part of many of Microsoft's server-based products, and VMware has provided support for using PowerShell to manage VMware Infrastructure environments in the VI Toolkit for Windows. With the release of vSphere, the VI Toolkit for Windows became PowerCLI.

PowerCLI extends PowerShell so that you can manipulate objects ...