Looking for assistance to Automate groups of WVD VMs to Power On / Off in a cycle

Question

We have 20 WVD VMs running in a pool. Using an Automation Runbook and Schedule with Tags, we have it set where 5 VMs are powered on every day at 7 AM. At 5 PM, due to business hours specified in scaling script and number of VMs to leave running outside business house, the number of running VMs is dropped to 2.

Currently, to change which 5 VMs are set to run / power on / off, we have to change which VMs have the tag set in the schedule so the Automation Runbook does its job.

What I am looking for is a way to automate things up where we can group the 20 VMs into 4 groups of 5 and every 7 days, 1 of the groups takes over and 5 power on at 7 AM - 5 PM and 2 remain running from 5 PM - 7 AM. The following week, the next group of 5 would take over, with the previous group moving to the back of the pack. Over 4 weeks, each group of 5 VMs would take their turn running on the schedule.
Hope that made sense.....is there a way to look into doing this?

Answer 1

The code around getting the VMs and start the VMs could look like this:

# Get basic variables  
$day = Get-AutomationVariable -Name 'WVDdayofweek'  
$week = Get-AutomationVariable -Name 'WVDweek'  
$WVDgroupTag = $week  
  
# Just some output  
Write-Output "Current Day is $day"  
Write-Output "Current Week is $week"  
  
# Add your code to get and start all VMs with Tag WVDgroup = x here  
Write-Output "Starting WVD host of WVDhostgroup =  $WVDgroupTag"  
  
  
########################################  
# Prepare and set variables for next run  
if ($day -lt 7) {  
    $day += 1  
    Set-AutomationVariable -Name 'WVDdayofweek' -Value $day  
    }  
else {  
    $day = 1  
    Set-AutomationVariable -Name 'WVDdayofweek' -Value $day  
    if ($week -lt 4) {  
        $week += 1  
        Set-AutomationVariable -Name 'WVDweek' -Value $week  
        }  
    else {  
        $week = 1  
        Set-AutomationVariable -Name 'WVDweek' -Value $week  
        }  
    }  
  

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards
Andreas Baumgarten

Answer 2

Just an idea (draft):

Create 2 Azure Automation variables (for example):

• DayOfWeek
• Week
  Set both variables at the beginning = "1"

Create a Tag for each VM of the 4 WVD Host Groups. For instance Tag Name: "WVDgroup" and provide a value to each of the 4 groups (1, 2, 3, 4). Each of the 20 WVD host should have set the "WVDgroup" tag from "1" to "4".
5 VMs with Tag "WVDgroup =1", 5 VMs with Tag "WVDgroup =2", 5 VMs with Tag "WVDgroup =3", ....

In the Automation runbook for "WVD start" add a query for the 2 Automation variables "DayOfWeek" and "Week"
If "Week" equals 1" start WVD host with Tag "WVDgroup equals 1 "
Set variable "DayOfWeek+ 1"
If "DayOfWeek equals 7" set variables "Week +1" and "DayOfWeek = 1"
This way after 7 days the Week variable is 2 and the second WVD host group (with Tag "WVDgroup = 2") will be startet, and so on

If "Week equals 4" and "DayOdWeek equals 7" set "Week = 1" and "DayOfWeek = 1 " (start over again)

Does this help?

---

(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards
Andreas Baumgarten

Answer 3

Thank you for the information. Going to try and set this up and see how it goes

I appreciate it

Answer 4

Thank you!! This is looking like its going to work....I really really appreciate it!