Script to backup your vCenter DRS Rules

I was thinking yesterday, I have a script that I run on a monthly basis to backup my vDS configs…  Shouldn’t I also have something that does the same for my DRS rules?  So, I wrote a script that I can schedule to run on a weekly/monthly basis to backup my DRS rules. I have multiple vCenter servers, so I used an array to connect to each one and then exported the rules for each cluster within those vCenters.

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#####################################################
#
# PowerCLI Script to export DRS Rules
# Created by BLiebowitz on 6/26/2017
#
#####################################################
 
# Build an array for each vCenter to connect to
$array = "vCenter1", "vCenter2", "vCenter3"
for($count=0;$count -lt $array.length; $count++)
{
# Connect to vCenter
connect-viserver $array[$count]
 
# Set the export file name & folder location.
$export = "E:\vmware\DRS\$($array[$count])_DRSrules_$((Get-Date).ToString('MM-dd-yyyy')).txt"
 
# Get the clusters to export rules from
$clusters = get-cluster
 
# Find and export rules for each cluster
foreach ($cluster in $clusters) {
 
# Find all the rules
$rules = get-cluster -Name $cluster | Get-DrsRule
 
# Export each rule
foreach($rule in $rules){
$line = (Get-View -Id $rule.ClusterId).Name
$line += ("," + $rule.Name + "," + $rule.Enabled + "," + $rule.KeepTogether)
 
foreach($vmId in $rule.VMIds){
$line += ("," + (Get-View -Id $vmId).Name)
}
# Write each rule to a file.
$line | add-content $export –force
 
# Disconnect from vCenter
disconnect-viserver $array[$count] –confirm:$false
 
}
}
}

The results will look like this:

An Affinity Rule will look like:
Cluster1,Rule_Name,True,True,VM1,VM2

An Anti-Affinity Rule will look like:
Cluster1,Rule_Name,True,False,VM1,VM2

This is what the line means… CLUSTERNAME, RULENAME, Enabled/Disabled, Affinity=True/Anti-Affinity=False, VMs

Hope someone finds this useful. 🙂

Ben Liebowitz, VCP, vExpert
NJ VMUG Leader

 

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10 thoughts on “Script to backup your vCenter DRS Rules”

    1. Sure, you can use something like this to restore to a new switch.

      Get-ChildItem “E:\vmware\DRS\vCenter” | Foreach {
      New-VDPortgroup -VDSwitch NewVDS -Name “New$($_.BaseName)” -BackupPath $_.FullName
      }

      Be sure to validate everything once you restore.

      Reply

  2. Hello,

    Looking to do the same however on 6.7 has anything changed? I keep getting errors that say it is not connected to a vCenter server, even thought it showing that it is.

    “get-cluster : 1/17/2020 3:36:56 PM Get-Cluster You are not currently connected to any servers. Please connect first using a Connect cmdlet. ”

    Even manually going Connect-ViServer before hand and connecting, the error still appears.

    Reply

    1. I just tested the script in my homelab and had no problems. If you do Connect-viserver and then get-cluster, it should return a list of clusters. In my lab, I only have 1 cluster.

      Reply

      1. Hi there,

        I found a good script to save the DRS rules in a VMware article. Now I would like to import the rules from the files again. Could you maybe help me?

        Many Thanks

        Here the backup-script:

        # Export DRS Rules to CSV

        # Requires PowerCLI 6.5.1+

        # Export DRS Rules

        Get-Cluster | Get-DRSRule | select Name,Cluster,Enabled,Type,@{N=’VMs’;E={[string]::Join(‘,’,((Get-VM -ID $_.VMIDs).Name))}} | Export-CSV -NoType -Delimiter ‘;’ -Encoding Default D:\PS-Scripts\Ausgabe\DRSRule.csv

        # Export DRSClusterGroup

        Get-Cluster | Get-DRSClusterGroup | Select Name,Cluster,Grouptype,@{N=”Member”;E={[string]::Join(‘,’,($_.Member))}} | Export-CSV -NoType -Delimiter ‘;’ -Encoding Default D:\PS-Scripts\Ausgabe\DRSClusterGroup.csv

        # Export DRSVMHostRule

        Get-Cluster | Get-DRSVMHostRule | Select Name,Cluster,VMGroup,Type,VMHostGroup,Enabled | Export-CSV -NoType -Delimiter ‘;’ -Encoding Default D:\PS-Scripts\Ausgabe\DRSVMHostRule.csv

        Reply

          2. Hi Alex,

            As I posted back in 2017, you can use this command to restore from a backup file. This will restore each backup file into a new VDS for each. If there’s only 1 backup in the folder, it’ll only restore that one.

            Get-ChildItem “E:\vmware\DRS\vCenter” | Foreach {
            New-VDPortgroup -VDSwitch NewVDS -Name “New$($_.BaseName)” -BackupPath $_.FullName
            }

  3. Have you tried the new way with the Get-DrsVMHostRule command let. the get-drsrule one is deprecated now!.

    Thank you.

    Reply

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