In my environment I have 11 Remote Locations that each have one ESXi host.  I had a problem with ILO firmware updates the other day where I had to reboot these remote hosts.  I really didn’t want to use the VIC to click on each of the VMs to shut them down, so using a lot of help from mpreston’s site I came up with a script that will shut down all of my VMs and then when ready, start the VMs again.  My script shuts down “Front End” VMs first, then DB VMs, and then finally DCs.  I have a modified version that allows me to do the same for my Datacenters that I will share later.  You might have to edit the script if your database and or DCs are named differently.

add-pssnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core
connect-viserver servername #Insert your vcenter server

#Variables
$datacenter = “datacenter”  #Add all datacenters here with a comma and quotations between each example “datacenter1”, “datacenter2”
$filename = “c:\vmshutdown\poweredonvms.csv”  #You must create this file first…it won’t create it for you.

#Get a list of the hosts being rebooted and set them to maintenance mode.  This keeps the VMs from powering on again.
Get-VMHost -location $datacenter | set-vmhost -State Maintenance

#Get a list of powered on VMs
get-vm -location $datacenter | Where-Object {$_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOn”} | Select Name | Export-CSV $filename

#Get a list of VMs that are not Database servers or DCs.  
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Retrieving a list of powered on VMs…” -ForegroundColor Green
Write-Host “”
$poweredonguests = Get-VM -Location $datacenter | Where-Object {$_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOn”} | where {$_.Name -notlike “*DB*”} | where {$_.Name -notlike “*DC*”}

#Power off servers that are not Database and DCs
foreach ($guest in $poweredonguests)
{
Write-Host “Processing $guest…” -ForegroundColor Green
Write-Host “Checking for VMware Tools Install” -ForegroundColor Green
$guestinfo = get-view -Id $guest.Id
if ($guestinfo.config.Tools.ToolsVersion -eq 0)
{
Write-Host “No VMware tools detected in $guest, these will be powered off” -ForegroundColor Yellow
Stop-VM $guest -Confirm:$false
}
else
{
Write-Host “VMware tools detected. I will attempt to gracefully shutdown $guest”
$vmshutdown = $guest | Shutdown-VMGuest -Confirm:$false
Sleep 5
}
}

#Waiting for these shutdowns to complete
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Giving VMs 3 minutes for VMs that are not DB or DC to shutdown.”
Write-Host “”
Sleep 180

#Shut down DB Servers at remote sites
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Shutting Down DB Servers”
Write-Host “”
#get our list of DB servers that are powered on…
$poweredondbs = Get-VM -Location $datacenter | Where-Object {$_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOn”} | where {$_.Name -like “*DB*”} | where {$_.Name -notlike “*DC*”}
foreach ($dbs in $poweredondbs)
{
Write-Host “Processing $dbs…” -ForegroundColor Green
Write-Host “Checking for VMware Tools Install” -ForegroundColor Green
$guestinfo = get-view -Id $dbs.Id
if ($guestinfo.config.Tools.ToolsVersion -eq 0)
{
Write-Host “No VMware tools detected in $dbs, these will be powered off” -ForegroundColor Yellow
Stop-VM $dbs -Confirm:$false
}
else
{
Write-Host “VMware tools detected. I will attempt to gracefully shutdown $dbs”
$vmshutdown = $dbs | Shutdown-VMGuest -Confirm:$false
Sleep 5
}
}

#Waiting for these shutdowns to complete
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Giving VMs 3 minutes for Database VMs to shutdown.”
Write-Host “”
Sleep 180

#Shut down DCs
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Shutting Down DCs”
Write-Host “”
#get our list of DB servers that are powered on…
$poweredondcs = Get-VM -Location $datacenter | Where-Object {$_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOn”} | where {$_.Name -like “*DC*”}
foreach ($dcs in $poweredondcs)
{
Write-Host “Processing $dcs…” -ForegroundColor Green
Write-Host “Checking for VMware Tools Install” -ForegroundColor Green
$guestinfo = get-view -Id $dcs.Id
if ($guestinfo.config.Tools.ToolsVersion -eq 0)
{
Write-Host “No VMware tools detected in $dcs, these will be powered off” -ForegroundColor Yellow
Stop-VM $dcs -Confirm:$false
}
else
{
Write-Host “VMware tools detected. I will attempt to gracefully shutdown $dcs”
$vmshutdown = $dcs | Shutdown-VMGuest -Confirm:$false
Sleep 5
}
}

#Waiting for these shutdowns to complete
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Giving VMs 3 minutes for DCs to shutdown.”
Write-Host “”
Sleep 180

#Time to restart the hosts
get-vmhost -location $datacenter | restart-vmhost -runasync -confirm $false

Now that you have rebooted your hosts, it is time to start all the VMs again.  You are going to use the dame variable that we created above.

#Take hosts out of maintenance mode.  
get-vmhost -location $datacenter | set-vmhost -state connected

#Power On DCs
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Powering On DCs”
Write-Host “”
#get our list of DCs servers that are powered off…
$poweredoffdcs = Get-VM -Location $datacenter | Where-Object {$_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOff”} | where {$_.Name -like “*DC*”}
foreach ($dcs in $poweredoffdcs)
{
Start-VM $dcs -Confirm:$false
Sleep 5
}

#Power On DB Servers
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Powering On DBs”
Write-Host “”
#get our list of DB servers that are powered off…
$poweredoffdbs = Get-VM -Location $datacenter | Where-Object {$_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOff”} | where {$_.Name -like “*DB*”}
foreach ($dbs in $poweredoffdbs)
{
Start-VM $dbs -Confirm:$false
Sleep 5
}

#Power On the rest
Write-Host “”
Write-Host “Powering On Remaining VMs”
Write-Host “”
#get our list of VMs that are still powered off…
$poweredoffguest = Get-VM -Location $datacenter | Where-Object {$_.PowerState -eq “PoweredOff”}
foreach ($guest in $poweredoffguest)
{
Start-VM $guest -Confirm:$false
Sleep 5
}

 You remote locations should be back up!