Host shutdown delay

Hi all,

I'm just trying to write a VMWare shutdown script that is executed when a HP UPS detects that power has been out for a period of time.

The script takes the datacentre out of HA fine, and shuts down the VMs but the problem is that vcentre is virtual, and this is the box that is running the script.

I need the script to tell the hosts to shut down, but to do this on a delay timer if possible.  Once the delay timer is started, then the script can then tell the vcenter VM to turn itself off, with the knowledge that the host will shut down on its timer a short time later.

Is this possible?

Also has anyone had any experience shutting down a HP lefthand SAN cluster from one of these scripts at all?

Thanks for any help