During a project I had to start and stop about 100 VMs, if I put the runbook in serial mode, it took about 2 hours to be execute, so… the only way to do it in a fast way, was to program the runbook to be executed in parallel mode. How can it be done? Easy!
#list and start vm with tag "OpeningHours" and value "7 to 19"
$vms = get-azvm | where {$_.Tags["OpeningHours"] -contains "7 to 16"}
$jobs = @()
foreach ($vm in $vms)
{
$job = Start-Job -ScriptBlock {
start-Azvm -Name $vm.name
}
$jobs = $jobs + $job
}
# Wait for it all to complete
Wait-Job -Job $jobs
That’s all, you can change the start-azvm with a stop-azvm -force and you will be done
Albandrod's Memory 
Hi
Thanks for this script.
I’m quite new to Powershell and had a problem with it or 2 actually.
Firstly it wouldn’t recognise the $vm.name in the ScriptBlock, I fixed this by replacing with $using:vm.name
Then it prompted me for a resourcegroup.
So ultimately I replaced
start-Azvm -Name $vm.name
with
$using:vm | start-Azvm
Hope this helps you / others.
Thanks again
Chris.
I’m quite new to Powershell and had a problem with it or 2 actually.
Firstly it wouldn’t recognise the $vm.name in the ScriptBlock, I fixed this by replacing with $using:vm.name
Then it prompted me for a resourcegroup.
So ultimately I replaced
start-Azvm -Name $vm.name
with
$using:vm | start-Azvm
Hope this helps you / others.
Thanks again
Chris.
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Thanks for your comment Chris!
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Thank you @Albandrod and Chris for the comments,
Start-Job -ScriptBlock { $using:itemName | Start-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $LoadAgentResourceGroup -Name $itemName }
Start-Job -ScriptBlock { $using:itemName.Name | Start-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $LoadAgentResourceGroup -Name $itemName.Name }
It is not working for me, could you please help me what I missed here
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Thank you @Albandrod and Chris for the comments,
Start-Job -ScriptBlock { $using:itemName | Start-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $LoadAgentResourceGroup -Name $itemName }
Start-Job -ScriptBlock { $using:itemName.Name | Start-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $LoadAgentResourceGroup -Name $itemName.Name }
It is not working for me, could you please help me what I missed here (for me it is Itemname is the vmname), I have provided it like this $itemName = ‘npd-jmetr-app01′,’npd-jmetr-app02′,’npd-jmetr-app03′,’npd-jmetr-app04′,’npd-jmetr-app05’;
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Which problem are you having? can you explain the error?
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In the console it is triggering without an error but the VM is still in deallocated state
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declaring $itemName should be like $itemName=(“npd-jmetr-app01″,”npd-jmetr-app02″,”npd-jmetr-app03″,”npd-jmetr-app04″,”npd-jmetr-app05”), check the variable $LoadAgentResourceGroup, are the Vm in different RG?
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Thank you albandrod, mistake was with providing the parameters, solve it by
$StartVMjobs = @()
$parameters = @($VMName, $ResourceGroupName)
$Startjob = Start-Job -ScriptBlock {
param($VM_NAME, $RG_Name)
Start-AzVM -Name $VM_NAME -ResourceGroupName $RG_Name
} -ArgumentList $parameters
$StartVMjobs = $StartVMjobs + $Startjob
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Glad you’ve been able to solve it 🙂
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I have similar another problem, like I have 5 Linux machines, I have user name and password to connect them over SSH (currently using putty client to connect them).
I want to automate it through PowerShell for the following steps,
1. Want to connect to each machine.
2. Navigate through to a particular folder (/home/server/)
3. Run the command “nohup ./server &” in all machine in parallel.
Could you please put some insight on this ?
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I have similar another problem, like I have 5 Linux machines, I have user name and password to connect them over SSH (currently using putty client to connect them).
I want to automate it through PowerShell for the following steps,
1. Want to connect to each machine.
2. Navigate through to a particular folder (/home/server/)
3. Run the command “nohup ./server &” in all machine in parallel.
Could you please put some insight on this ?
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Have you thought about running the script in AutomationAccount with SSH module enabled?
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