HPE Storage Toolkit for Windows PowerShell Cmdlet Summary

The HPE Storage toolkit for Windows includes numerous PowerShell cmdlets. The following table provides a summary of all cmdlets that are included with toolkit 7.0.0 and later.

NOTE: HPE Storage adds cmdlets with different releases of the toolkit. Some of the cmdlets listed in this summary were introduced in earlier versions of the toolkit while others were introduced in the toolkit 7.0.0.
Table 1. PowerShell Cmdlets Summary
Cmdlet Description
Set-Configuration Sets the group management IP address to be used by the VSS provider for discovery and snapshot processes. Should be executed on a backup host.

Used to configure group credentials on the host, which is a prerequisite to perform restore operations through the VSS Hardware Provider.

NOTE: The Set-Configuration cmdlet is required to run all the application aware data management cmdlets.
Get-NWTConfiguration Shows the IP address and credentials that were set using the Set-Configuration cmdlet.
Clear-NWTConfiguration Clears the settings made with the Set-Configuration cmdlet. Using this cmdlet, you can clear all group management IP addresses and their credentials from the registry, and remove the settings pertaining to the given Group Management IP address.
Get-NimVolume Displays all iSCSI and FC volumes connected to the host. For volumes accessed using FC, provides detailed mapping information (source and target WWPN).

Use this cmdlet with the -verbose option to list any orphan mappings. Orphan mappings are valid, but do not map to any physical disk device in Windows.

Set-NimVolume Manipulates various Windows disk and volume attributes associated with a specified volume. This command can be used to reset the Windows VDS flags and attributes on a volume cloned or restored from a VSS snapshot so that it can be mounted as a disk. The disk to be manipulated is specified using the Disk identifier (DiskID) or volume serial number. Either the DiskID or serial number must be specified.
Connect-NimVolume Connects any volume or clone to the local host.

Use this cmdlet to assign a drive letter or directory path as an access path to the volume, add a new disk signature, reset the VSS flags (if necessary), and add the volume to a cluster as either a cluster resource or CSV.
Disconnect-NimVolume Disconnects the specified volume from the Windows host and removes associated initiator groups from the volume Access Control List (ACL).

If the Windows host is part of a Windows 2012 or later failover cluster, the disconnect is performed on all nodes of the cluster.

NOTE: A best effort is made to disconnect even if an operation fails and as many volumes as possible are disconnected. If errors are encountered, the exceptions are listed and you are instructed to manually clean up those connections.

This cmdlet closes all connections, deletes Favorites (for iSCSI), and deletes any cluster resources associated with the volume.

NOTE: In a Windows 2008 R2 cluster, all operations are performed only on the local node. If volumes are connected through iSCSI, connections must be manually removed from nodes other than the local note. Cluster resources also must be manually removed from other nodes.
Invoke-CloneNimVolume Creates clones of volumes, snapshots, or Windows volumes hosted on volumes using access paths.

Use this cmdlet to optionally assign a drive letter or specify a directory path to the Windows volumes, and add the cloned volumes to a cluster as an available disk resource or a CSV.
Invoke-CloneNimVolumeCollection Creates clones of volumes in a volume collection or of snapshots in a snapshot collection.

You can use this cmdlet to optionally assign a drive letter or specify a directory path to the Windows volumes, and add the cloned volumes to a cluster as an available disk resource or a CSV.
Get-NimSnapshotCollection Queries application object metadata on snapshots and returns snapshot collections. The returned snapshot collection object can be used as a unit to clone a volume or a volume collection. Returned objects are sorted in reverse chronological order (latest first) based on CreateTime.
Get-NimSnapshot Provides the capability to query snapshots based on a volume or a specific snapshot collection.
Remove-NimVolume Disconnects volumes from the Windows host and deletes the volumes from the array.

If the -DeleteBaseSnap parameter is specified and the volume is a clone, the base snapshot is deleted.

If the Windows host is part of a Windows 2012 or above failover cluster, the disconnect is performed on all nodes of the cluster.
NOTE: A best effort is made to disconnect even if an operation fails and as many volumes as possible are disconnected. If errors are encountered, the exceptions are listed and you are instructed to manually clean up those connections.

This cmdlet closes all connections and deletes Favorites for iSCSI, and deletes any cluster resources associated with the volume.

NOTE: In a Windows 2008 R2 cluster, all operations are performed only on the local node. If volumes are connected through iSCSI, connections must be manually removed from nodes other than the local note. Cluster resources also must be manually removed from other nodes.
Get-NimDatabase (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Queries all the related arrays with SQL databases configured on the host and displays details about all the databases present on the volume that is on the current host. The cmdlet displays snapshots of volumes using the volume pipeline object, the volume name, or the Windows volumes that are using access paths.
Get-NimDatabaseSnapshot (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Queries all the related arrays with SQL databases configured on the host and displays details about all the snapshots present. If any snapshot has SQL database details, then those details will be populated as well.
Invoke-NimDatabaseClone (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Create clones of SQL databases residing on volumes in a volume collection or a snapshot collection. With this cmdlet, you can assign a drive letter or directory path to the Windows volumes and add the cloned volumes to the cluster as an available resource or a CSV file.
This cmdlet performs the following operations:
  • Detects the volumes belonging to the database using an SQL VSS writer.
  • Creates clones of volumes in a volume collection or snapshots in a snapshot collection.
  • Assigns a drive letter as an access path. If you do not provide an access path, the volumes are mounted at the C:\ProgramData\temp\ directory.
  • Adds a directory as an access path.
  • Assigns a drive letter and adds the clone to the cluster as an available disk.
  • Adds the clone to the cluster as a CSV file.
  • iSCSI environments: Uses the -IsPersistent option to ensure that the connection is persistent.
  • Fibre Channel cluster environments: Creates a temporary initiator group with the name <host>-<guid>-DoNotUse to map the volume to a local node until the volume is ready to be mounted on multiple nodes.
  • When the CrashConsistent option for a volume collection is used, creates application-consistent snapshots for the collection. It uses these as the base snapshots for the clone creation operation.
Invoke-NimDatabaseSnapshot (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Creates snapshots of SQL databases residing on volumes in a volume collection. Provides options for creating application consistent and crash-consistent snapshots.
Invoke-NimSnapVolume (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Creates a snapshot of one or more volumes or Windows volumes hosted on volumes. This cmdlet creates snapshots of volumes using a volume object, a name, or Windows volumes mounted on access paths.
Invoke-NimSnapVolumeCollection (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Creates a snapshot collection of one or more volumes in a volume collection. If you include the CreateAppConsistentSnapshot option for a volume collection, the cmdlet creates application-consistent (VSS) snapshots for the collection.
Remove-NimSnapshot (Toolkit 7.0.0 and later) Deletes snapshots of volumes, SQL databases, and snapshot collections of volume collections. It does not return any values.