Create a new view in vRealize Operations to show powered off VMs

After several large data center migrations to consolidate our data centers, we realized we had a lot of leftover garbage in the vCenters that was moved as part of our project. We needed a quick way to view VMs that had been powered off for a long period of time, in our case over 180 days. This would tell us the VM had been off for at least 6 months and most likely was no longer being used. So I created a new view in vRealize Operations to show us just that!

The New View in vRealize Operations

We start by logging into vROPs and going to Visualize -> Views

new view

Then we need to create a new view to give us our data. Give the view a name and we want to select “List” as our presentation. Our subject will be “Virtual Machine”. Now that data is where we get to the good stuff. Let’s start with our first metric “Summary|Reclaimable Powered Off”. This is going to be the star of the show and allow us to gather the powered off data.

Powered Off Metric

We want to set the Transformation of that metric as Average and No Timestamp. Then you can go to the Time Settings tab and select “Relative Date Range”. This will tell it how many days you want to get from our view. For example, mine is set for 180 days.

Time Settings

You can skip Breakdown by as we don’t need to change anything there. Now Filter, is where we need to filter out our powered off metric. We only want to show those VMs that are off for our time frame set in the last step. You want to add the metric -> Summary|Reclaimable Powered off -> Minimum -> is -> 1.

metric filter

Once you have added that, you’re done. You can play with the time settings to adjust to your needs and add any other filters you think are helpful. For example, we have added filters to ignore templates, and ignore certain tags that we know are VMs that are exceptions to the powered off cleanup.  Creating a new view in vRealize Operations doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Play with it for a while and try to get the data you need. The most important pieces are the metrics you use and how you filter out the data.

The next generation of vSphere is coming!

Project Pacific

The next generation of vSphere is coming! Save the date for March 10

VMware executives & Kubernetes pioneers join forces to help you unlock the potential of your team to accelerate digital innovation in a multi-cloud world.  This will be a streamed event from VMware executives as they review how the next generation of vSphere will help with the multi-cloud world.


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Introducing the new DRS logic and UI including VM DRS scores

Introducing the new Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) logic and UI including VM DRS scores

Introducing the new DRS logic and UI including VM DRS scores

The first release of Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) dates back in 2006. Since then, the data center and workloads have changed significantly. With the latest release of VMware Cloud on AWS, revision M9, we introduce the new DRS UI that accompanies the improved DRS logic that was already introduced in release M5. The new and The post Introducing the new DRS logic and UI including VM DRS scores appeared first on VMware vSphere Blog.


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Application Discovery in vSphere with VMware Tools 11

Application Discovery in vSphere with VMware Tools 11

Application Discovery in vSphere with VMware Tools 11

The holidays are just around the corner and hopefully everyone is taking some time off to spend with their families, I know I certainly will! As I start to wind down 2019, I like to use this time catch up on things in my backlog that I was not able to get to in the […]


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Migrating a Datacenter using Veeam Backup & Replication

I recently had the privilege to write an article for Techgenix on using Veeam to migrate a datacenter. I’ve done this process a few times now and have written for Techgenix before. So when they approached me again to write for them I thought this migration process would be good. This is my third time completing a datacenter migration using Veeam and since I had just recently finished one, the process was still very fresh in my mind. Here is my latest article for Techgenix, Migrating a Datacenter using Veeam Backup & Replication. As always, if you have any questions, please reach out. Enjoy the read!

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In previous blog posts, we looked into the vMotion process and how to utilize high bandwidth networks to lower live-migration times. This blog post is dedicated to gaining more knowledge on what to do when troubleshooting vMotion if a live-migration is not working.


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Announcing vSphere 6.7 Update 3

Announcing vSphere 6.7 Update 3

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We are excited to announce the future release of VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 3. This new vSphere release comes with enhancements that will continue to deliver on our goal of providing a highly performant, efficient and more secure hybrid cloud platform to our partners and customers. Next to various enhancements and driver updates, we again will include new The post Announcing vSphere 6.7 Update 3 appeared first on VMware vSphere Blog.


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Announcing vSphere 6.7 Update 2, vSphere Platinum updates, and vSphere ROBO Enterprise

Announcing vSphere 6.7 Update 2, vSphere Platinum updates, and vSphere ROBO Enterprise

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I am excited to share that today we are announcing the VMware vSphere 6.7 Update 2 release, with key enhancements that will deliver an efficient and more secure hybrid cloud platform to our customers. We are also announcing the new vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Enterprise edition, as well as updates going specifically into vSphere The post Announcing vSphere 6.7 Update 2, vSphere Platinum updates, and vSphere ROBO Enterprise appeared first on VMware vSphere Blog.


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Now Available – Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7 eBook

Now Available – Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7 eBook

Now Available – Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7 eBook

I am proud to announce availability of the new VMware vSphere eBook Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7, authored by Nigel Hickey and David Stamen. This is a free resource to assist customers upgrading to vSphere 6.7. The eBook further builds on the foundational guide Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.5 by Emad Younis which has been widely adopted when The post Now Available – Upgrading to VMware vSphere 6.7 eBook appeared first on VMware vSphere Blog.


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