VMware vSphere Native iPad Application
I find it a bit interesting, but not surprising, that VMware is soon going to be releasing a native iPad application providing similar functionality that is found in the vSphere client for Windows. I wonder why VMware is utilizing programming resources on the iPad when they have yet to come to market with a supported Linux version of vCenter? For many years virtualization administrators in Linux/Unix shops have been telling VMware that vCenter and its associated database server and vSphere clients are the only Windows boxes they support and would very much appreciate a fully functional vCenter and client for Linux. Back in 2008, VMware was saying they would be releasing versions of vCenter running on Linux along with familiar Windows versions. Still waiting… (a limited CTP version does exist here).
I also wonder if VMware has given up on the vCenter Mobile Access (vCMA) product since it is still in a community technology preview version, there have been no major enhancements, and its been a long time since it was introduced. The vCMA had the “cool” factor when it was released–I remember showing people how I could vMotion a VM from one ESX host to another from my Blackberry. That cool factor faded away to the point where I haven’t used the vCMA in over a year–it’s just too kludgy to get anything done. Is the iPad vSphere application the new vCMA–the new vendor specific application that will introduce the iPad into corporate virtualization environments? Will it take over the functionality of the vCMA?
Don’t get me wrong, I see tremendous possibilities for the iPad within the corporate environment. The VMware vSphere iPad application could be very useful to large organizations that have lots of ESX hosts. Imagine an administrator being able to evacuate and place an ESX host in maintenance mode while troubleshooting a hardware issue within the datacenter (or from Hawaii on business). I can even see the VMware vSphere iPad application allowing virtualization administrators to manage a significant portion of their daily workload away from the office.
In conclusion, it’s great that VMware is working on new innovative ways to enhance access to vCenter from various devices; however, if I had my way I would rather VMware spend more time doing the following (in this order):
- Enhance the vCenter product for Windows. When I say “enhance” I mean work on the fit-and-finish of the product. All too often I am presented with ambiguous error messages or stumble on a failed process, yet the event reporting within vCenter can’t seem to tell me what’s wrong.
- Work on the overall performance of the vCenter UI. There are reports all over the Internet of the horrific performance within the vCenter user interface. I see it everyday. Viewing inventory takes 10 seconds to load up once the vCenter interface is visible (this doesn’t count the time to logon and load the plugins). Granted, performance is linked to hardware specifics and one must build an appropriate server environment to support vCenter; though, I am talking about poor performance on vCenter servers running with new multiple Xeon quad-cores with 8GB+ physical memory with a large dedicated physical DB server back-end.
- Enable performance monitoring across all hosts from a single UI window. Since a DRS cluster is essentially a pool of CPU and memory resources–why are we still required to troubleshoot performance by analyzing single ESX servers (think esxtop)?
- Enhance command-line troubleshooting tools. For example, an esxtop command that has a global view of clusters and storage. Yes it’s great to see the read/write MBps to a specific VMFS LUN but I want to see the total across all hosts not just the localized view of a single ESX host.
- Stop developing new features that are only added to the growing list of VMware products including vCloud Director, vCloud Request Manager, Orchestrator, CapacityIQ, Site Recovery Manager, Lab Manager, and Configuration Manager. Put some of the features in vCenter for continued value-add. For example, why haven’t we seen simple Virtual Machine replication in vCenter?
- Finish and release a fully functional Linux vCenter server with associated Linux vSphere client.
- Create better quality upgrade and patch bundles. Why do customers cross their fingers hoping everything is going to work as expected after upgrading vCenter or an ESX host? How many times have I seen an upgrade break vCenter (for example, certificates, web services, health monitoring)? Answer, many times.
- (last) Develop a mobile vSphere client.
