This post is inspired by a one-liner from Alan Renouf and question from Jason Boche on Twitter. The original one-liner can be found here: http://www.virtu-al.net
The first one-liner in this post will show the Cluster name, ESX host and the total running VM’s on the host.
Get-VMHost | Select @{N="Cluster";E={Get-Cluster -VMHost $_}},Name, `
@{N="NumVM";E={($_ |Get-VM | where {$_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn"}).Count}}
The second one-liner will return the hostname with the least running VM’s on it:
Get-VMHost | Select @{N="Cluster";E={Get-Cluster -VMHost $_}},Name, @{N="NumVM";E={($_ |Get-VM | where {$_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn"}).Count}} ` | Sort-Object NumVM | Select-Object Name -first 1
The next “two-liner” will return the VMHost with the least running VM’s and set the VMHost into maintenance mode. This can become handy if you want to patch a VMHost:
$ESXHost = Get-VMHost |Select @{N="Cluster";E={Get-Cluster -VMHost $_}},Name, @{N="NumVM";E={($_ |Get-VM |where {$_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn"}).Count}}` |Sort-Object NumVM |Select-Object Name -first 1 Get-VMHost $ESXHost.Name |Set-VMHost -State maintenance
The last “two-liner” will return the VMHost with the least running VM’s, Set the host into maintenance mode and shutdown the VMHost:
$ESXHost = Get-VMHost |Select @{N="Cluster";E={Get-Cluster -VMHost $_}},Name, @{N="NumVM";E={($_ |Get-VM |where {$_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn"}).Count}}` |Sort-Object NumVM |Select-Object Name -first 1 Get-VMHost $ESXHost.Name |Set-VMHost -State maintenance ` |%{Get-View $_.ID} |%{$_.ShutdownHost_Task($TRUE)}
ICT-Freak.nl 
I’m trying to write a PowerCLI script to get the virtual machine name, host and datastore on a given cluster. I have seen several examples where you can extract this information from all datastores, but not just a specific. Any suggestions?
Working on a script to suspend my VM’s, put hosts into maintenance mode, and then shut down hosts. The problem is that when I put the hosts into maintenance mode they vMotion all the VM’s, which I don’t want. When I investigate the command there is supposed to be an -Evacuate switch which will control that behavior. However, when I try -Evacuate $false I get an error.
Do you know how to put a host into mainenance mode WITHOUT vMotioning the VMs?
Thanks,
Tom
You need to set drs to manual before you put the host into maintenance mode. This is also possible with PowerCLI. But remeber, don’t disable drs, ot will remove all the resourcepools.