Using the HPE Storage Toolkit PowerShell Cmdlets

The PowerShell cmdlets provided with the HPE Storage Toolkit work with FC and iSCSI arrays. You can run them using the shortcut provided by the toolkit installer or from a PowerShell window. The cmdlet help function provides detailed information about the cmdlets as well as examples of using them.

The cmdlets enable you to perform numerous tasks. You can use them to work with snapshots, volumes, volume collections, clones, VSS, and SQL databases. The tasks you can perform include:
  • Configure passwords
  • Configure group management IPs to communicate with service providers, for example, to perform off-host backup
  • Display volume information and disk mapping
  • (Toolkit 4.1.0 and later) Create clones of the storage volumes, volume collections or snapshots
  • (Toolkit 4.1.0 and later) Connect volumes or clones to the local host
  • (Toolkit 4.1.0 and later) Disconnect volumes from a host and remove the initiator ACL
  • (Toolkit 4.1.0 and later) Perform application object queries on snapshots or snapshot collections
  • (Toolkit 4.1.0 and later) Disconnect and remove volumes from the array
  • (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Work with SQL databases to clone snapshots and snapshot collections and to provide information about the snapshots, snapshot collections, and database
  • (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Create application-consistent and crash-consistent snapshots of SQL databases residing on storage volumes in a volume collection
  • (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Create a crash-consistent snapshot of one or more storage volumes or Windows volumes hosted on HPE Storage volumes
  • (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Create a snapshot collection of one or more storage volumes in an HPE Storage volume collection
  • (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Delete snapshots of storage volumes, SQL databases, and snapshot collections of volume collections
NOTE: Toolkit 7.0.0 added more support for VSS snapshots as well as the ability to work with snapshots and SQL instances.

Cmdlet help

To display help information for a cmdlet, use the Get-Help cmdlet. For example, enter Get-Help Get-NimSnapshot to show the syntax, description, and examples of the Get-NimSnapshot cmdlet.

You can also display examples by using Get-Help with the --Examples option. For example, enter Get-Help Clear-NWTConfiguration -- Examples to show examples of using the Clear-NWTConfiguration cmdlet.

The cmdlets display logging information on the PowerShell console. Staring with toolkit 7.0.0, the information is color-coded to allow you to quickly determine the severity of a log issue:
  • Green messages indicate everything worked as expected.
  • Red messages indicate an error. There is an issue you must resolve.
  • Yellow messages are warning messages. You need to evaluate the message. You might not need to take action at this time.
  • Cyan (light blue) messages are for information only. You do not need to take any actions.

Launching cmdlets

You can use the toolkit PowerShell cmdlets by taking one of the following actions:

  • Launch the PowerShell cmdlets using the shortcut created by the toolkit installer.
    NOTE: The PowerShell window must be opened with elevated privileges (Run As Administrator).
  • Open a PowerShell window and enter the command Import-Module <install_location> \Nimble.PowerShellCmdlest.psd1

    For example:

    PS C:\Administrator> Import-Module'C:\Program Files\Nimble Storage\bin\Nimble.PowerShellCmdlets.psd1'
NOTE: Versions of the toolkit prior to version 7.0.0 use the standard message display. Only HPE Storage Toolkit 7.0.0 supports color coding.

After the PowerShell cmdlets are imported, run the Set-Configuration cmdlet to set the IP address and credentials for the storage group you want to work in.

Attention: To use PowerShell cmdlets in a Group Target Scoped (GTS) environment, you must be running Toolkit 6.0.0 or later.