Testing inventory objects for compliance with baselines

If you want to know whether your inventory objects are up to date or have missing patches, you can use the Test-Compliance cmdlet to test inventory objects for compliance with baselines attached to them. The syntax of the Test-Compliance cmdlet is as follows:

Test-Compliance [-Server <VIServer[]>] [-Entity] <InventoryItem[]>
    [[-UpdateType] <UpdateType[]>] [-RunAsync] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] 
    [<CommonParameters>]

The -Entity parameter is required. You can use the -UpdateType parameter to specify the type of the patches and upgrades you want to scan. The valid values are: HostPatch, HostUpgrade, HostThirdParty, VmPatch, VmHardwareUpgrade, VmToolsUpgrade, and VaUpgrade. The VmPatch value is deprecated and will be removed in a following release of PowerCLI.

In the first example, we will scan all the hosts in the New York data center for missing patches:

PowerCLI C:\> Test-Compliance -UpdateType HostPatch...