Introduction
I’ve decided to share my PowerCLI scripts that I think were useful.
First script I would like to share is to generate Alarm definitions. One thing to notice is that this script will only load alarms with Actions, e.g. Send SNMP, Send Mail…etc.
The following script should be executed once you are connected to vCenter server(s).
Script
output = foreach ($alarm in (Get-AlarmDefinition | Sort Name | Get-AlarmAction))
{
$threshold = foreach ($expression in ($alarm | %{$_.AlarmDefinition.ExtensionData.Info.Expression.Expression}))
{
if ($expression.EventTypeId -or ($expression | %{$_.Expression}))
{
if ($expression.Status) { switch ($expression.Status) { "red" {$status = "Alert"} "yellow" {$status = "Warning"} "green" {$status = "Normal"}}; "" + $status + ": " + $expression.EventTypeId } else { $expression.EventTypeId }
}
elseif ($expression.EventType)
{
$expression.EventType
}
if ($expression.Yellow -and $expression.Red)
{
if (!$expression.Yellow) { $warning = "Warning: " + $expression.Operator } else { $warning = "Warning: " + $expression.Operator + " to " + $expression.Yellow };
if (!$expression.Red) { $alert = "Alert: " + $expression.Operator } else { $alert = "Alert: " + $expression.Operator + " to " + $expression.Red };
$warning + " " + $alert
}
}
$alarm | Select-Object @{N="Alarm";E={$alarm | %{$_.AlarmDefinition.Name}}},
@{N="Description";E={$alarm | %{$_.AlarmDefinition.Description}}},
@{N="Threshold";E={[string]::Join(" // ", ($threshold))}},
@{N="Action";E={if ($alarm.ActionType -match "SendEmail") { "" + $alarm.ActionType + " to " + $alarm.To } else { "" + $alarm.ActionType }}}
}
$output | Export-Csv alarm.csv -UseCulture -NoTypeInformation
Sample Output
| Alarm | Description | Threshold | Action |
| Cannot connect to storage | Default alarm to monitor host connectivity to storage device | vprob.storage.connectivity.lost // vprob.storage.redundancy.lost // vprob.storage.redundancy.degraded // esx.problem.vmfs.nfs.server.disconnect | SendSNMP |
| Exit standby error | Default alarm to monitor if a host cannot exit standby mode | ExitStandbyModeFailedEvent // DrsExitStandbyModeFailedEvent | SendSNMP |
| Health status changed alarm | Default alarm to monitor changes to service and extension health status | HealthStatusChangedEvent | SendSNMP |
| Virtual Machine with Snapshots | Testing alarm to notify if someone creates a snapshot on a certain virtual machine. | Warning: isAbove to 1048576 Alert: isAbove to 2097152 |
Hope this helps to people who wants to review alarms created within vCenter servers.
Steven Kang 
Excellent post, just one note at the beginning of the code
output = foreach
must be
$output = foreach
With $ at the first since you are declaring a variable.