This is the second in a series of articles giving extended example of how to use the RestAPI. This article will demonstrate how to generate a report equivalent to the Version 3 "OutputApplications" view using PowerShell. For a shorter example that returns a simpler dataset, you can see the article Use RestAPI and PHP to generate a list of Applications.

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Build the CSV file header row

PowerShell has a number of built in libraries for handling output to various file formats. For this example we will be saving the results in a CSV file that can be viewed directly in EXCEL or imported into other databases.

# Build the CSV File header row
$csv = @()
$row = New-Object System.Object

$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Hostname" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "FQDN" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "SoftwareName" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "SoftwareVersion" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "SoftwareVendor" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "SoftwareEdition" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "InstanceIdentifier" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "ClusterInformation" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "UserCount" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "LastScanDate" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Location" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Language" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "ApplicationID" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "DeviceID" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "DNSHostname" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "DNSFQDN" -Value $null
$row | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Evidence" -Value $null

...

• A VMWare cluster reports ESX Nodes and ESX Clusters as distinct entries in the Applications output.
  • ESX Node has "product.name" set to "VMware VSphere Hypervisor", 
    The parent_cluster information (if present) points to the cluster this node is part of.
  • ESX Cluster entry has "type" set to "VMWare Cluster", no edition, "name" is name of cluster
    Links to cluster nodes, link to cluster parent (self), node id given, need to generate and follow link to device ID for node names
• Veritas Cluster Server,
  Links to clusters gives list of nodes, same as in devices. node names in devices.
• Windows Server Cluster
  Links to two or more devices
  No "cluster" or "parent_cluster" entry
• Oracle Database Cluster Server
  Multiple devices
  No "clusters" or "parent_cluster" entry
• SQL Server Cluster
  No cluster info available
• Websphere AS Cluster
  Multiple devices
  No "clusters" or "parent_cluster" entry

		# Deal with clusters -- this gets hairy, finish it tomorrow
		if  ($thisApplication.product.name -eq "VMware Cluster")
		{
			# VMWare cluster - will need to generate and follow links to nodes to get device names
			
		}
		elseif (     ( $thisApplication.product.name -eq 'Oracle Database Cluster Server' )
				 -or ( $thisApplication.product.name -eq 'WebSphere AS Cluster')
				 -or ( $thisApplication.product.name -eq 'Windows Server Clustering')
				 -or ( $thisApplication.product.name -eq 'Veritas Cluster Server') )
		{
			# Get list of node names from $thisApplication -> devices
			$cluster = -join ("Cluster: ", $thisApplication, " Nodes: ");
			
			$k=0
			while ($k -lt  $thisApplication.devices.count)
			{
				$cluster = -join ($cluster, $thisApplication.devices[$k].host_name)
				if ($k -lt $thisApplication.devices.count)
				{
					# more to do
					$cluster = -join ($cluster, "; ")
				}
				$k = $k + 1
			}
		}