I need to send a string to the controller then send result back to View in MVC.net - model-view-controller

Question

I am trying to make an web app with MVC.Net to display text boxes in the view where a vmware hostname is entered then the value is taken from the box from a button click and sent to the controller which then searches for it using an external SQL server with the resulting vcenter sent back to the text box. Right now I have the SQL working with a statically entered host name (test1) , so I click on the button and it does return the vcenter from sql, but I need to know how to be able to have the value sent back from the text box from the view to the controller, then the result sent back to the view, please help. I find this MVC ridiculously convoluted and difficult especially compared to asp.net webforms.
I have the following code for the view
#{
#model getdata
<script type="text/javascript">
function Hello() {
var yourJavaScriptArray = #Html.Raw(Json.Serialize(Model.Name));
ResourcePool.value = "Hello!";
ipnumber.value = yourJavaScriptArray;
}
</script>
<tr>
<td><b>vCenter Name: </b></td>
<td> #Html.TextBox("vCenter", " ", new { style = "color:blue" })</td>
<td><input type="submit" value="TestQuery" button style=" width:140px;" onclick="Hello()" /></td>
</tr>
Then the model is simple -
namespace WebApplication1.Models
{
public class getdata
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string read1 { get; set; }
public string textfrombox { get; set; }
public string searchText1 { get; set; }
}
}
Then for the controller -
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Search(string searchText)
{
SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["sqlconnection"].ConnectionString);
var model = new Models.getdata();
string test1 = " HostName " ;
string textToQuery = "%" + test1.Trim() + "%";
string hosttest = ("select vcenter from db_owner.host where name like #textToQuery");
SqlCommand cmdhosts = new SqlCommand(hosttest, conn);
conn.Open();
cmdhosts.Parameters.AddWithValue("#textToQuery", textToQuery);
using (SqlDataReader read = cmdhosts.ExecuteReader())
{
while (read.Read())
{
// model.read1 = (read["Name"].ToString().Trim());
model.read1 = (read["Name"].ToString().Trim());
}
}
conn.Close();
model.Name = model.read1;
model.searchText1 = model.read1;
return View(model);
// return View(name);
}