Automatically clean up VMware snapshots using PowerCLI.

Something that every VMware admin who also uses Veeam has had to deal with once if not multiple times is Veeam not cleaning up snapshots properly which then leads to broken snapshot chains, leading to VMDK corruption, and finally leading to an admin crying into his / her bourbon realizing that “no the VM isn’t coming back up, no I can’t consolidate the snap chain and recover it, and no there haven’t been backups in $n days to recover from.” A process I’ve put into my own environment to prevent this is a simple PowerCLI script that looks for all snapshots over 24 hours old, and removes them. VMware recommends that you never have more than 3 snapshots in a chain and those should never be over 72 hours old from a performance standpoint. Personally I agree completely with that. Snapshots should only be used before making a big change so you can quickly roll back, not something that you create and then live off of.

This script requires that the VMware PowerCLI modules are installed on the system you run it from.

#################################################################
#   Remove all snapshots from vSphere from the last 24 Hours    #
#   Created by - Cameron Joyce                                  #
#   Last Modified - Jun 19 2017                                 #
#################################################################
# This script uses PowerCLI to remove all snapshots from virtual machines that are 24 hours old. 

# Load all VMware Modules, and set PowerCLI config.
Get-Module -ListAvailable VM* | Import-Module

# Connect to vSphere vCenter Server.
Try{
    connect-viserver -server your.vmware.server -user administrator@vsphere.local -Password Password
}
Catch{
    Write-Host "Failed Connecting to VSphere Server."
    Send-MailMessage -From "" -To "server@domain.com" -Subject "Unable to Connect to VSphere to clean snapshots" -Body `
    "The powershell script is unable to connect to host your.vmware.server. Please investigate." -SmtpServer "smtp.server.com"
    Break
}

# Variables
$date = get-date -f MMddyyyy
$logpath = "C:\Scripts\Script_Logs"

# Verify the log folder exists.
If(!(Test-Path $logpath)){
    Write-Host "Log path not found, creating folder."
    New-Item $logpath -Type Directory
}

# Get all snapshots older than 24 hours, remove them.
If((get-snapshot -vm *) -ne $null){
    $snapshotlist = get-snapshot -vm * | select VM, Name, SizeMB, @{Name="Age";Expression={((Get-Date)-$_.Created).Days}}
    Write-Host "Current Snapshots in Dallas vSphere"
    Write-Output $snapshotlist
    Write-Output "Snapshots existing before cleanup" | Out-File $logpath\Snapshots_$date.txt -Append
    Write-Output $snapshotlist | Out-File $logpath\Snapshots_$date.txt -Append
}

# Check to make sure that all snapshots have been cleaned up.
If((get-snapshot -vm *) -ne $null){
    get-snapshot -vm * | Where-Object {$_.Created -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-1)} | Remove-Snapshot -Confirm:$false
    $snapshotlist = get-snapshot -vm * | select VM, Name, SizeMB, @{Name="Age";Expression={((Get-Date)-$_.Created).Days}}
    Write-Host "Current Snapshots in Dallas vSphere after cleanup"
    Write-Output $snapshotlist
    Write-Output "Snapshots existing after cleanup" | Out-File $logpath\Snapshots_$date.txt -Append
    Write-Output $snapshotlist | Out-File $logpath\Snapshots_$date.txt -Append
}
Else{
    Write-Output "No Snapshots to clean up." | Out-File $logpath\Snapshots_$date.txt -Append
}

# Send snapshot log to email.
$emailbody = (Get-Content $logpath\Snapshots_$date.txt | Out-String)
Send-MailMessage -From "server@domain.com" -To "user@domain.com.com" -Subject "Daily vSphere snapshot cleanup report" -Body $emailbody -SmtpServer "smtp.server.com"

# Exit VIM server session.
Try{
    disconnect-viserver -server your.vmware.server -Confirm:$false
}
Catch{
    Write-Host "Failed disconnecting from VSphere."
    Send-MailMessage -From "server@domain.com" -To "user@domain.com" -Subject "Disconnection from VSphere Failed" -Body `
    "The powershell script is unable to disconnect from VSphere. Please manually disconnect" -SmtpServer "smtp.server.com"
}

# Cleanup Snapshot logs older than 30 days.
gci -path $logpath -Recurse -Force | Where-Object {!$_.PSIsContainer -and $_.LastWriteTime -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-30)} | Remove-Item -Force

There is more logic in here for sending email alerts than actual VMware commands, however when this is running automated from a PS job, it is super helpful to have all the emails.