Automated deployment using VMware powercli

Question

We are having build environment where we did not use any tools like Cruise control , TFS or buildforge.

We are purely depend upon Msbuild and powershell. We decided to automate the deployment process.

As we are using VMWare ESXi to meet our Virtual machine needs. We decided to use VMWare powercli to automate deployment process.

After build is over , VMware powercli will revert the snapshot of VM to fresh state and we tried using Invoke-VMScript to do automated deployment.

But as our deployment has UI , this is nearly impossible as Powercli try to invoke UI in session 0 and it doesn't support UI application.

Does any body overcome this problem and installed your application successfully in Virtual machine?

Answer 1

I have some experience in the area. I use PowerCLI and Windows Remote to get the job done. I have a machine with VMWare snapshot where windows remoting is activated and configured and then I use PowerCLI to revert to snapshot and power the machine on and then I call Invoke-Command. Not sure if it will survive the UI thing, but worth a try. First make sure that you can execute your task from PowerShell and if yes - then windows remouting will most probably be able to do it as well. You can read how to configure Windows Remouting here: http://amarchuk.blogspot.com/2011/10/windows-remoting-and-powershell.html