Introduction to Microsoft Hyper-V Automation

This section describes how to use the automation policies, automation actions, and custom action types found in the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack. Installation of the Windows PowerShell Automations PowerPack is required before using the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack.

What is the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack?

The Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack includes:

• A set of automation actions that run diagnostic commands on Hyper-V systems via PowerShell
• A set of automation policies that tie events from monitoring PowerPacks to the automation actions
• A dynamic device group for Hyper-V devices that is used to scope the automation policies

The Microsoft Hyper-V Automation actions are executed on the SL1 All-In-One Appliance or Data Collector.

In addition to using the standard content, you can use the content in the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack to create your own automation policies that include the pre-defined actions that run different sets of diagnostic commands.

The Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack uses the supplied “Execute PowerShell Request” custom action type included with the Windows PowerShell Automations PowerPack.

Prerequisites

Before installing the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack, you must perform the following actions:

• Install the Microsoft: Hyper-V Server PowerPack and configure it to monitor your Hyper-V device(s)
• Install version 103 or later of the Windows PowerShell Automations PowerPack
• Install version 102 or later of the Datacenter Automation Utilities PowerPack
• Install the Diag-V plug-in on your Hyper-V server. The plug-in is available here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Diag-V-A-Hyper-V-0fe983e4

Installing the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack

Before completing the steps in this section, you must import and install the latest version of the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack.

The Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack requires SL1 version 8.10.0 or later. For details on upgrading SL1, see the appropriate SL1Release Notes.

By default, installing a new version of a PowerPack overwrites all content from a previous version of that PowerPack that has already been installed on the target system. You can use the Enable Selective PowerPack Field Protection setting in the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior) to prevent new PowerPacks from overwriting local changes for some commonly customized fields. (For more information, see the section on Global Settings.)

The minimum required MySQL version is 5.6.0.

To download and install the PowerPack:

1. Search for and download the PowerPack from the PowerPacks page (Product Downloads > PowerPacks & SyncPacks) at the ScienceLogic Support Site.
2. In SL1, go to the PowerPacks page (System > Manage > PowerPacks).
3. Click the Actions button and choose Import PowerPack. The Import PowerPack dialog box appears.
4. Click [Browse] and navigate to the PowerPack file from step 1.
5. Select the PowerPack file and click Import. The PowerPack Installer modal displays a list of the PowerPack contents.
6. Click Install. The PowerPack is added to the PowerPacks page.

If you exit the PowerPack Installer modal without installing the imported PowerPack, the imported PowerPack will not appear in the PowerPacks page. However, the imported PowerPack will appear in the Imported PowerPacks modal. This page appears when you click the Actions menu and select Install PowerPack.

Standard Automation Policies

The Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack includes four standard automation policies, shown in the following figure. Each policy triggers three automation actions that collect diagnostic data within a PowerShell session, and an action that formats the output in HTML. All of the automation actions use the same custom action type, "Execute PowerShell Request", which is supplied in the Windows PowerShell AutomationsPowerPack.

All of the standard automation policies are tied to included ScienceLogic SL1 events generated by the Dynamic Applications from the Microsoft: Hyper-V Server PowerPack.

Several of the automation actions use the substitution character feature of the “Execute PowerShell Request” custom action type. If an event variable is included in a command (such as "%Y" for the sub-entity name), the custom action type automatically replaces that variable with the value from the triggering event.

The following table shows the standard automation policies, their aligned events, and the automation actions that run in response to the events.

The aligned events are included as part of the Microsoft: Hyper-V Server PowerPack and are not installed with the SL1 platform. You must install the Microsoft: Hyper-V Server PowerPack to obtain these events.

Automation Policy Name	Aligned Events	Automation Actions
Hyper-V: CPU & Memory Diagnostic Commands	Microsoft: Windows CPU Utilization has exceeded the threshold Microsoft: Windows Processor Queue Length exceeded the threshold Microsoft: Windows Available Memory below threshold Microsoft: Windows Pages per Second has exceeded threshold Microsoft: Windows Paging File has exceeded threshold	Automation Utilities: Calculate Memory Size for Each action Hyper-V Guest Status Diagnostic Commands Hyper-V Log Collection Datacenter Automation: Format Output as HTML
Hyper-V: Disk & Storage Diagnostic Commands	Microsoft: Windows Disk Transfer Time (Physical Disk) exceeded threshold Microsoft: Windows % Disk Time (Logical Disk) exceeded threshold Microsoft: Windows % Disk Time (Physical Disk) exceeded threshold Microsoft: Windows Current Disk Queue Length (Physical Disk) exceeded threshold Poller: File system usage exceeded (major) threshold Poller: File system usage exceeded (critical) threshold	Automation Utilities: Calculate Memory Size for Each action Hyper-V Guest Replication Diagnostic Command Hyper-V Guest Status Diagnostic Commands Hyper-V Guest Storage Diagnostic Commands Datacenter Automation: Format Output as HTML
Hyper-V: Guests Below Threshold Diagnostic Commands	Microsoft: Hyper-V Percent VMs Running below threshold	Automation Utilities: Calculate Memory Size for Each Action Hyper-V Guest Replication Diagnostic Command Hyper-V Guest Status Diagnostic Commands Hyper-V Guest Storage and Replication Diagnostic Commands Hyper-V Log Collection Datacenter Automation: Format Output as HTML
Hyper-V: Run Time Capacity Diagnostic Commands	Microsoft: Hyper-V Percent Total Run Time has exceeded major threshold Microsoft: Hyper-V Percent Total Run Time has exceeded minor threshold	Automation Utilities: Calculate Memory Size for Each Action Hyper-V Guest Status Diagnostic Commands Hyper-V Allocation Diagnostic Commands Hyper-V Log Collection Datacenter Automation: Format Output as HTML

The following figure shows a memory event with a classification of "Major" appears on the Events page. Click the [Actions] button () for an event, and select View Automation Actions to see the automation actions triggered by the events.

The results shown for this event, in the Event Actions Log, include the automation policy that ran (shown at the top of the following figure), along with the automation actions (commands) that ran. Results for each command are also displayed. The following figure shows an example of this HTML output.

To learn more about which commands are executed by default for a given automation action, see Customizing Actions.

Although you can edit the automation policies described in this section, it is a best practice to use "Save As" to create a new automation action, rather than to customize the standard automation policies.

Credential for Hyper-V Automation

The Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack uses the same credential that you created for the Windows PowerShell Automations PowerPack. Refer to the Creating a Credential section for more information.

If you have the Microsoft: Windows Server PowerPack installed and configured, you may skip this section.

For more information about configuring credentials in SL1, see Credentials.

Creating and Customizing Hyper-V Automation Policies

To create and customize Automation Policies for the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack, see the Creating and Customizing Automation Policies section.

Creating a Custom Action Policy for Hyper-V

You can use the "Execute PowerShell Request" action type included with the Windows PowerShell Automations PowerPack to create custom automation actions that you can then use to build custom automation policies. To create a custom action policy, see the Creating a Custom Action Policy section.

Customizing Automation Actions

The Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack includes 2 automation actions that execute the "Execute PowerShell Request" action type to request diagnostic information or remediate an issue. You can specify the commands and the options in a JSON structure that you enter in the Input Parameters field in the Action Policy Editor modal.

The following automation actions that use the "Execute PowerShell Request" action type are included in the Microsoft Hyper-V Automation PowerPack. Compare the commands run with the example in the image above. For more information about input parameter fields,
see the table in Creating a New Microsoft Hyper-V Automation Action.

Action Name	Description	Commands Run
Hyper-V Allocation Diagnostic Command	Determines the current resource allocation health of the Hyper-V server or cluster.	Test-HyperVAllocation
Hyper-V Guest Replication Diagnostic Command	Runs a diagnostic command related to Hyper-V guest replication	Get-VMReplicationStatus
Hyper-V Guest Status Diagnostic Commands	Runs diagnostic commands to collect Hyper-V guest status and configuration information.	Get-VMStatus Get-VMInfo | Format-Table
Hyper-V Guest Storage Diagnostic Commands	Runs diagnostic commands related to Hyper-V Guest storage and replication.	Get-VMLocationPathInfo | Format-Table Get-VMSharedVHDs | Format-Table
Hyper-V Log Collection	Collects the most recent 25 log entries from the Hyper-V logs.	Get-HyperVLogInfo -StartDate ((Get-Date).addminutes(-10))

For more information about substitution variables, see Appendix A.

Creating a New Microsoft Hyper-V Automation Action

You can create a new automation action that runs remote PowerShell requests using the supplied "Execute PowerShell Request" custom action type. To do this, refer to the Creating a New Windows PowerShell Automation Action section

For a description of all options that are available in Automation Policies, see the Run Book Automation section.