Enabling Change Block Tracking (CBT) on a vSphere 5.1 VM with PowerShell/PowerCli

In one of my previous post, I created two PowerShell functions to enable Copy/Paste operations on VMware vSphere 5.1 between a Guest OS and the vSphere Client remote console.
Today we'll use a very similar piece of code to Enable Change Block Tracking (CBT) on one or more Virtual Machines.

I already talked about CBT in the past, but I just wanted to create re-usable PowerShell functions that will help me when I need it.

Enabling Change Block Tracking (CBT) on a Virtual Machine (VMware vSphere 5.1)

Update: 2013/07/02 I wrote another post about CBT and create a re-usable PowerShell function

I recently had to enable CBT in my VMware vSphere environment, on a good amount of Virtual Machines.

What is Change Block Tracking (CBT) ? If you are not familiar with CBT,  checkout the following articles:

• Eric Siebert: What is Change Block Tracking (CBT) ?
• VMware KB: Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on virtual machines
• VMware Documentation: Low Level Backup Procedures

How to implement CBT, what do you need ?

• VM version 7 at least,
• No snapshot on your VM
• Enable CBT,
• Finally the VM must go through a stun-unstun cycle (power on, resume after suspend, migrate, or snapshot create/delete/revert) before the reconfiguration takes effect.

How to Enable CBT on your VM ? (GUI)

Note: When the VM is Powered ON you won't be able to access those settings.
However, It is possible to do it via PowerShell even when the VM is started. :-)  (see below)

Navigate to Configuration Parameters and add the following Entries.

Right click on your VM, select Edit Settings/Options Tab/Advanced/General.
Click on Configuration Parameters and add the following entries