System Monitoring and Reporting via PowerShell

PowerShell is very powerfull and you can automate most of your daily tasks. One of the best task that I like to automate is to monitor system performance and send email alerts. Here is a sample script but you can customize based on your needs.

$cpu = Get-Counter ‘\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time’

$cpuValue = $cpu.CounterSamples.CookedValue

if ($cpuValue -gt 90)

{

Send-MailMessage -From “john@abc.com” -To “reporting@abc.com” -Subject “High CPU Usage Alert” -Body “CPU usage is above 90%: $cpuValue%” -SmtpServer “smtp.abc.com”

}

Technical Explanation of script

Below is the technical explanation of what each code and argument in the above powershell script does.

$cpu = Get-Counter ‘\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time’

This line uses the Get-Counter cmdlet to retrieve performance data. Specifically, it gets the percentage of processor time used by the total processor(s) on the machine (_Total). This is a performance counter that measures CPU usage.

$cpuValue = $cpu.CounterSamples.CookedValue

Here, the script extracts the cooked value of the CPU usage from the CounterSamples property of the object returned by Get-Counter. The CookedValue represents the percentage of CPU usage in a human-readable form.

if ($cpuValue -gt 90)

This line checks if the CPU usage is greater than 90%. The script will proceed to send an alert if this condition is true.

Send-MailMessage -From “john@abc.com” -To “reporting@abc.com” -Subject “High CPU Usage Alert” -Body “CPU usage is above 90%: $cpuValue%” -SmtpServer “smtp.abc.com”

If the CPU usage is above 90%, the script sends an email alert using the Send-MailMessage cmdlet.

• From: Specifies the sender’s email address (john@abc.com).
• To: Specifies the recipient’s email address (reporting@abc.com).
• Subject: The subject line of the email, indicating a high CPU usage alert.
• Body: The body of the email, which includes the actual CPU usage percentage.
• SmtpServer: The SMTP server (smtp.abc.com) used to send the email.

This script monitors the CPU usage of a system and sends an email alert to a specified recipient if the CPU usage exceeds 90%. This kind of script can be used in system administration to monitor server health and performance, ensuring that administrators are alerted to potential issues promptly