define ARM Parameters Variables with Excel - powershell

Question

I have a list of 34 VMs to build in Azure, there's 3 different sizes, and apart from the nic name and VM name they are pretty much identical but going into 3 different resource groups. So I thought create a an excel with three tabs each one with with all the same details, leaving out the nic name and VM name. Then I created 3 text files, one for each VM build, populated those with the name of the VMs (random names not sequential), and thought simples, use a foreach loop, for each of the vm list pointing to a different tab. However when I try to run the Powershell it just hangs, I think it's at the point where it does a convertTo-Json. Also while I'm struggling, every time I can cel teh deployment as it just hangs, it takes about 15 minutes for the console to be responsive again, is there a process in the background that causes it to hang?
Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions, even if there's a better way of doing it.
The powershell code is at:
Code:
function vmparam
{
$ws = $wb.Worksheets.Item($wsnumber)
$data = Get-Content -Path "$updatepath\vm.parameters.json" -raw | ConvertFrom-Json
$Row=2
$col=2
Write-Host "updating parameters" -ForegroundColor Cyan
$data.parameters.diskCount.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(2,0).Value()
$data.parameters.vmSize.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(3,0).Value()
$x = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(2,0).Value()
if ($x -eq "1")
{
$xlArray = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(4,0).Value()
[String[]]$val = $xlArray[0]
$data.parameters.diskSize.value = $val
}
elseif ($x -eq "2")
{
$xlArray = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(4,0).Value().Split(',')
[String[]]$val = $xlArray[0], ($xlArray[1]).TrimStart()
$data.parameters.diskSize.value = $val
}
$data.parameters.networkName.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(5,0).Value()
$data.parameters.networkResourceGroup.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(6,0).Value()
$data.parameters.subnetName.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(7,0).Value()
$data.parameters.vm01NicName.value = "$vm-nic1"
#$data.parameters.vm01IPAddress.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(13,0).Value()
$data.parameters.vm01VMName.value = $vm
$data.parameters.stdVMImagePublisher.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(11,0).Value()
$data.parameters.stdVMImageOffer.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(12,0).Value()
$data.parameters.stdWindowsOSVersion.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(13,0).Value()
$data.parameters.diagstorageAccountName.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(14,0).Value()
$data.parameters.diagResourceGroup.value = $ws.Cells.Item($Row,$col).offset(15,0).Value()
$data | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 9 | % { [System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex]::Unescape($_) } | set-content -Path "$updatedpath\$vm.parameters.json"
Write-Host "parameters updated" -ForegroundColor Green
}
Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

The error was related to the xls stored in onedrive and not locally.. :)