VMware Communities: Message List - Web UI is the future?

Re: Web UI is the future?

Serthos — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:04:43 GMT

I agree with the other comments on this board, I prefer the Windows based "Server Console" vs. the new web UI. I have two VMWare Server 1.04 servers in a lab that provide access to any engineer in a specific NIS domain. After I upgraded to the 2.0 beta, I downgraded immediately after noticing the following:

The Windows Server Console cannot be used to access virtual machines.

Users cannot login with an NIS domain account. I know this is a known issue, and currently you must log in as root, but it was something I wasn't expecting.

Biggest issue I have with this version, users can't create a virtual machine unless they're given a URL by the system administrator. At least, that's how it seems to work. With the VMWare Server Console any authorized user, e.g. in an NIS domain, can login and create a virtual machine. With the new Web UI, a URL must be provided for users to access the system, and the URL is specific to a virtual machine that is created before hand by the admin.

The second biggest issue, related to the previous one, is that it seems users won't be able to view a complete list of all available virtual machines running on the server unless they're given a specific URL to a particular virtual machine. Granted, I never tried to log in as a non-root user (since so far it seems you must be root to log in), but from looking at the interface and reading the online help it appears this is the way it's designed to work moving forward.

I also don't like the design of the web UI, it needs a lot of work. I prefer the way the UI looked previously when accessing the web administration pages.

In summary, I won't upgrade to the new version unless it maintains feature parity with the 1.X line.

Re: Web UI is the future?

jtjones — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:27:26 GMT

Ok, VMware, you want feedback here it is.

1. A web based UI is ok (not great, or even good, just ok) but the need for a browser plugin is a security risk I will not allow my users to take.

2. Bundling a web server and java server in with your product and not notifying anyone that this is happening, is a risk I will not allow my server to take.

Well there are two major problems with this beta that you have released. I am hoping that the design docs are not hard set yet because reason number 2 will turn off most Sys Admins and item number 1 will cause major problems with users. My reasoning behind that, what happens to that plugin when the browser is updated / upgraded? Most plugins are either disabled or no longer valid for that release. I have more issues than these two, but if these two could be fixed then I would be willing to try it for longer than 73 minutes (which is how long it lived on my server before I uninstalled it).

Re: Web UI is the future?

devzero — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:35:21 GMT

I can check though.

this would be nice. (netstat -an, tcpdump or whatever else)
i don`t have the setup here for testing myself, i.e. no proxy

Re: Web UI is the future?

Fieldgeek — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:09:37 GMT

My network would be a bad example then. There would be a valid direct connection between my browsers and the vmware boxes if the plugin opened a tcp connection. I have not actually paid attention to it. I don't handle the proxy configuration at work and all I know is that it just works. I can check though.

Re: Web UI is the future?

devzero — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:40:36 GMT

We use squid at work and the web interface works just fine for me.

ok, but did you make sure that there is no direct communication path to your vmware server, i.e. the proxy is really in between ?
i have seen a lot of apps that where told to be a "web interface" and then the plugin component made a direct tcp connection to the server and was NOT able to speak http protocol (and thus being proxied by an http proxy)

Re: Web UI is the future?

Fieldgeek — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:35:50 GMT

We use squid at work and the web interface works just fine for me.

Re: Web UI is the future?

devzero — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:27:35 GMT

one question, btw:
can i use the web console if there is a http-proxy-server like squid between browser/client and server ?

Re: Web UI is the future?

sriya — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:21:41 GMT

To address two of your points:

1) Don't know where to configure or disable virtual networks

This needs to be done through the Virtual Networks Editor application on Windows Server hosts, which is a separate app that's packaged with the VMware Server product. On Linux, you can configure networks by running the vmware-config.pl script that offers you the option to change existing network settings.

3) Virtual machines don't automatically power up on system startup

This should work out of the box for Linux. For Windows, we will have full support for VM autostart/shutdown in the beta2 release, but as a workaround in the current beta, you can edit the Service Control settings for the "VMware Host Agent" service and pass in a "-u" command line option to use VM autostart. There's another thread on this forum where details on the specifics of this workaround are described.

Re: Web UI is the future?

mauirixxx — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 03:50:09 GMT

Fieldgeek wrote:

. I went right from testing on VMWare Server 1 to the current release of Server 2 because I needed 64bit suppor ton Exchange 2007 and why not test two things as once?

this doesn't make much sense to me? I recently purchased a Dell 2950 with dual quad-core xeons (the E5405's @ 2.0ghz w/ Intels VT enhancements or whatever it's called) w/ 8gb ram. Loaded up with Windows Server 2003 R2 x64. I'm currently running Exchange 2007 SP1 in a VM with VMWare Server 1.0.4, set to dual procs and 2.5gb of ram (holy smokes exchange 2k7 loves memory!)

I initially tried VMWare Server 2.0, but I too was turned off by the webui due to issues with both IE and FF (random lockups, or the mouse would get stuck in the bottom right hand corner of the guest OS), as well as the resource hog that is Tomcat 5. I uninstalled it and went back to what I know works well.

I too laughed at the irony about the warning message about running with debug on, yet not being able to turn off debug :P

Once I got the guest OS up with the vmtools installed, performance still seemed shaky (via RDP). But that may be attributed to having debugging on?

Admittedly though, when I first fired up my new toy, I actually tried out the MS VS 2005 R2, and while it was usable, a few things kept me from using that - 1 being the web based console didn't seem to work so well with FF, and I hated having to keep entering a user/pass every time a server reset, and the lack of 64 bit guest support (which VMWare Server 1.0.4 handles splendidly). And of course, multi CPU support in a guest as well.

I was well aware I was using a BETA product, one that warned not to use in a production environment, so I still have high hopes for the next beta release.

I would've loved to have moved to ESX, but at the time, ESX didn't support SATA drives (and of course, after I get everything setup, ESX 3.5 arrives with SATA support ... doh!) but that's for another thread

I appreciate the movement towards webui's, as I personally hate installing even more stuff on my computer just to get 1 thing done. But, in it's current form, the webui seems "broken" to me, due to the aforementioned lockups, randomness, and resource intensity.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Fieldgeek — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:10:28 GMT

After reading through this post, I was slightly shocked. I am running multiple virtual servers on my network (non-production... we don't use beta in production so Windows Vista is still not in sight yet) and actually kind of like the web interface. I can access it from anywhere I need to and yes, I have ran into some bugs and things I don't know about yet, and YES it is somewhat slow. The things I have run into are (I use IE7 to configure the system and some issues I had just took me some time to poke around and now I am going to RTFM):

1) Don't know where to configure or disable virtual networks

2) Console takes a long time to load and sometimes fails to load

3) Virtual machines don't automatically power up on system startup

While it is nice to have some type of interface on my system, I like to install as little as possible and having a web console is great. I do not and will not compare this to the ESX line which runs all of our virtual machines but I have an Exchange 2007 SP1 (5 virtual servers) test environment setup on a Core 2 Duo with 8GB ram and everything seems to work smoothly. No problems yet. Also, we don't virtualize any of our linux systems so I can't say much about those. I went right from testing on VMWare Server 1 to the current release of Server 2 because I needed 64bit suppor ton Exchange 2007 and why not test two things as once?

Re: Web UI is the future?

sej7278 — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:59:53 GMT

the vi client is a windows executable.

the firefox plugin is also a windows executable (as is the msie thing).

tomcat shouldn't be required - its a bit heavy just for a web gui, but a lot of programmers these days only know java (and it can be compiled to protect "ip") i can't imagine how horrible it would be to run tomcat on windows - is it even production ready, i know apache the webserver is considered very "alpha" on windows.

i wonder if the paravirt-ops gui for xen/kvm could be made to work with vmware...... does the vmware api expose enough to allow that?

this thread is marked as an "answered" question, so have i already missed the answer?

Re: Web UI is the future?

bhbarryn — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:31:06 GMT

I just tested with Sea Monkey (Mozilla) from Linux, and got "Can not view virtual machine console. The request timed out. The attempt to aquire a valid session ticket took longer than expected."

I even have problems in windows. Sometimes my browser locks up and I have to kill it and try 3 or 4 times before getting a login prompt!

Did you guys (VMWare), um, test this?

Re: Web UI is the future?

Aragorn450 — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:04:45 GMT

sej7278 wrote:
frankly a web ui that requires msie and a windows executable is a bit pointless - usually a web ui is for unix/mac users who can't run the windows clients!

I have to admit, I've not used the Linux version yet. However, I use Firefox on Windows and it's working great there, no MSIE requirement as far as I can tell. As for a Windows Executable, are you referring to the VMware Infrastructure Client? If so, that's not even supposed to be used with Server 2.0 Beta. It just so happens that it DOES work and so people are using it.

Tomcat is what runs the web interface for Server 2.0 Beta and seeing as Tomcat is made by the Apache foundation, it's certainly not Windows software. It was made for Linux originally (and really, should stay there as far as I'm concerned!) and so it works best in Linux.

All that to say that I'm a bit confused why you think things are being made for Windows clients more than Linux clients...

Re: Web UI is the future?

sej7278 — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:52:44 GMT

so is there no hope of us linux users getting a native console back again?

frankly a web ui that requires msie and a windows executable is a bit pointless - usually a web ui is for unix/mac users who can't run the windows clients!

what would be so hard about making the console from v1 work with v2 - have you changed the code so much (apparently not if that is what the browser plugin runs anyway)?

is 1.0.4 going to be the last of v1, or will it continue to be supported?

if your linux support in future is just going to be as a guest then can you confirm it so i can begin planning my migration to xen or kvm (something i've avoided previously as i liked the vmware console).

Re: Web UI is the future?

god2pcs — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:10:15 GMT

Agreed web gui sucks. it is slow, crashes, relies on IE, Brin back the console.

Re: Web UI is the future?

JoeDiMeo — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:12:38 GMT

The other possibility is putting the GUI on top of eclipse as a platform. Since you are going Java anyway, this allows the best of both worlds as the Eclipse Platform is available on both Windows and Linux

Re: Web UI is the future?

Stuporglue — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:29:53 GMT

I'd like to also voice my anti-support for the web gui. The native interface was much more responsive and reliable.

If someone working at VMWare sees this thread, could you please comment on how you're going to give us back a non-web option? Please? Please? Please?

Or let us know if you're not, so I can start shopping around for other virtualization options.

Thanks,

Michael

Ubuntu 7.10

Re: Web UI is the future?

Koplin — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:24:17 GMT

My 1st impression as I see a lot of others, web gui CRAP VMware server v2 very nice.

The GUI is Slow, very awkward to work in. I LOVED the standalone
console, PLEASE PLEASE bring it back and make the web optional or at
least more functional. I understand that it is the future as other VMware products have this type of gui but honestly the VI implementation works a bit better.

What about exploring the use of an AJAX gui, Zimbra uses it for an
exchange like interface and even on a modest 256-512k DSL link its very
usable, allows for a right click options etc so interface design is
more intuitive and easy to use. I don't know how it would work with the guest desktop view etc but as far as manipulating the guts of a VM session I think it would work better then the current implementation. I admit that AJAX also has some
overhead etc but if I have to use a GUI I would like it to be as usefull as posible. Just to add hardware is just too clunky and takes more time then the old dedicated app.

Thanks vmware and gang for such usefull tools. I couldn't do my job without vmware products! I hope we can help make this version the best yet.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Aragorn450 — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:22:09 GMT

It would be great if you could try the next version whenever it is available and provide the same memory analysis. Thanks.

I can certainly do that. I'm looking forward to the next version anyway since it will support running VMs on system start on Windows, which is broken right now. Although, my understanding is that the next version might not be until Feb?

Re: Web UI is the future?

InfinityAdmin — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:12:50 GMT

I have not read through everybody's response but I agree with most that I have read. The Web UI interface is a bit clunky when using the console part but I RDP to teh boxes I run. While I can figure out how to do what I need to do etc and I have some VMs running (CentOS Host) it is just a little to slow. I do miss the console piece even though I can see Vmware eventually having VMware to tie into Virtual Center and start charging for the VC agent and then you really dont need the Web UI as long as you are willing to cough up the dough, which would be perfect for me since I already have VC and ESX in house... I just wanted to use server for non critical test environments.....

Re: Web UI is the future?

bkolin — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:10:39 GMT

The web server footprint is a comment we have heard more than once and we will be working to bring it down as far as possible over the course of the next few cycles. It would be great if you could try the next version whenever it is available and provide the same memory analysis. Thanks.

Re: Web UI is the future?

bhbarryn — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:19:19 GMT

I also own VMWare workstation and I use the Server so I can get the "run as a service/remote console" features. I would love to have a copy of workstation that allowed this as then I could use workstations multiple snapshot feature!

Re: Web UI is the future?

Aragorn450 — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:04:51 GMT

If I was forced to only use the Web UI, I would probably be forced to abandon the
VMWare Server 2.0 product and go back to my copy of VMWare workstation 6, which
does NOT allow me to run VM's as a service.

This is a very interesting and important comment in my mind. So you actually own workstation? Why do you use Server? I'm asking seriously. Is it just for the 'run-VM-as-a-service' (which is a very real and very stupid limitation of WS6, and I believe we can, should, and will address it, hopefully in the near future).

I own WS 5.5 and have not upgraded to 6 because what I REALLY want is the ability to run my VMs as a service. So, Server is the best choice for me since Infrastructure is just too costly (both in software and hardware) for my current needs. If they'd add the ability to start VMs as a service in WS6, I'd probably upgrade myself.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Aragorn450 — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:44:12 GMT

I know this comment is late, but my BIGGEST complaint with the Web UI is the footprint it uses up. In Windows, starting the Web UI service takes my swap usage from 1232100 KB to 1505930 KB and my free RAM from 141500 KB to 93500 KB. Stopping the service takes me back down to 1231568 KB for swap and up to 143500 KB for RAM. No other processes started/stopped in the middle there and I let everything stabilize before taking the readings.

This works out to a total memory footprint of 321830 KB, or 314.3 MB, which is huge (I've only given each virtual machine 256 MB of RAM). This huge memory footprint makes the server run slower and adds to other applications running slower due to more swap space being used.

The point is that yes, the Web UI idea is cool. It's frankly just poorly implemented. As it is, I just set up my virtual machines with the web console, enable VNC and then turn it off and never look at it again, unless I REALLY need to. This is the only way that VMware Server 2.0 is usable to me at this point. There's a lot of great ways to do a Web UI, but in this case, JSP is not a good choice because of it's large memory footprint. Especially when running on Windows (Tomcat on Windows is a pain in the butt). Don't get me wrong, I love JSP, but only for large web apps that are hosted on mega servers. Otherwise, use something lighter.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Hope this all makes sense.

Charlie

Re: Web UI is the future?

bhbarryn — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:26:48 GMT

Yes, there are other things about a web interface that are not ideal.

1) There are limitions that are apparent in some of the features that are a function of how the web browser works.

2) It is to some extent dependant on the version of the web browser installed. If a new browser version comes out it could alter or break the interface in unexpected ways.

3) Web filtering software or browser security setting can interfere with the application.

4) The speed is not optimum.

On the plus side

1) It is useful to manage your VMWare machines from a workstation where you may not have the client software installed.

2) It COULD be written in a way to work accross many platforms.

Re: Web UI is the future?

degustator — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:57:42 GMT

Sorry, my previous post was not as technical as it should be

Yes, I'm running Windows Vista Enterprise, x86 English, RTM build. My browser is IE7. The server is Windows Server 2003 x64 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 2, English. Both machines (client and server) have all current updates installed from Microsoft Update.

I was able to istall the plug-in when launched the browser with admin privilegues. And now when I launch the browser with a limited user privilegues I'm able to perform various admin tasks. (By the way: how do I delegate server-wide permissions to another windows user or group?). But when I try to switch to a VM Console tab, my browser gives me an error dialog box: "Bad Handle 0x1b5c, The handle is invalid". When I click OK, it gives me another dialog box: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\plugins\vmware-remotemks.exe: this executable should not be invoked directly". And when I click OK here (no choice), the whole browser app hangs. But if I run the browser with admin privelegues, everything works fine.

I would be glad to provide any additional info if you need it.

Re: Web UI is the future?

rrdharan — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:09:57 GMT

You're talking about Windows, right? Is this on a Vista host?

We definitely do not want to require Administrative access. I believe it's just an issue with the plugin installer/packaging that is causing this problem. Anyway, it will be fixed (but again, not sure how soon).

Re: Web UI is the future?

degustator — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:09:34 GMT

Thanks. I really appreciate that you not just monitor this feedback, but also give us real-time answers.

Re: Web UI is the future?

degustator — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:05:18 GMT

by the way. It seems, that the remote console plug-in works only when the browser is launched with local admin privelegues. I'ts OK that plug-in installation requires you to be logged on as admin. But I want to be able to run is as a limited user after installation.

Re: Web UI is the future?

rrdharan — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:55:09 GMT

The proxy thing is a known issue. I intend to fix it soon (but probably not in the next beta).

Re: Web UI is the future?

degustator — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:52:40 GMT

Well, I guess this thread is kinda official bug report / feature request for new Web UI. Sorry, I don't have time to read it all, so I'll just add one more suggestion.

I've installed Server 2.0 Beta at home. Now I'm at work, and my cororate proxy server requires authorization. I can successfully connect to Web UI after providing my credentials to the proxy via browser. But when I try to view Virtual Machine's console, it seems to launch the plug-in. And the plug-in is a separate executable file. And this file cannot (or just doesn't try to) authorize on my proxy. It just attempts to connect to my server directly, and then fails. So I'd like to have a mechanism to provide the plug-in with proper credentials in order to bypass my proxy.

Re: Web UI is the future?

jovball — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:41:55 GMT

I have been a licensed user of workstation since v3 and also use Vmware Server (and Microsoft Virtual Server). I am a WEB APPLICATION developer (keep the irony in mind for later) but I also manage some database and web servers for clients.

My main use for workstation is testing software and running different versions. It also allowed me to run more "machines" without having more boxes, monitors and kvm switches. It was nice to be able to do snapshots and roll back changes. I'd be happy if workstation could run guests as a service but it's not as important as some of the things that are already there.

If I had to pick one feature from workstation that I'd like to see in Server, it would be snapshots. Anytime I do updates to the OS or an application on a production server, I hold my breath. Yes, I do backups, etc but a snapshot/restore is much easier than backup/restore.

When Vmware Server 1.0 came out I was able to use it to virtualize some applications for clients. I had some other clients who wanted to stick with MS Virtual Server because they were concerned about tech support issues. MS Virtual Server has a web interface and it's horrible. It is much more difficult to manage a server using the web interface than the console. If the two products were equal (and they aren't), I would pick Vmware Server 1.0 over MS Virtual Server on that issue alone.

Web clients are great for some things but you will not be able to duplicate the responsiveness, stability, consistency and "just works" of the console. When you are troubleshooting a server issue, the less variables in play the better. Introducing tomcat and a browser pretty much guarantees that you have more issues to work through.

Vmware Server is a great product. Please re-think the web interface and keep the good stuff coming.

Re: Web UI is the future?

anystupidassname — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:34:59 GMT

I really hope that the 100s of posts in this thread alone will convince VMware to bring back the vmware server console for all platforms. Although I might enjoy some of the new features in the new web GUI as ADDITIONAL functionality (assuming it can be turned off so as to not tax the server so much) it is imperative that the vmware server console be available for functionality such as quickswitch and maybe eventually drag and drop of files for example? My apologies if I missed something in the thousands of posts in this thread. I did not read them all...

Finally, Vmware team, keep up the great work with all of these virtualization products! Thank you!

Re: Web UI is the future?

hossnine — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:28:32 GMT

After playing with the web ui, seeing it eat up 250MB (apache) just to host the web service, how slow it is, and the difficulty in using it I couldn't agree more with all the detractors. VMWare, please please please don't take this approach. If you do, make it a secondary development path with the standard executable without pulling any functionality from either (well, the executable).

Sincerely,
Allen

Re: Web UI is the future?

Deviation — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:53:57 GMT

clevelandd wrote:

TAMW-- I cannot find the "native console app" that you mentioned. Could you please provide the default on Linux to it's installation or at least the file name so that I can search for it?

By the way-- I'm not talking about the MS Windows application-- my site is largely *nix based.

Thanks for your help!

There is no Linux based client available. The Windows client is available in the Linux package (for some reason). You are stuck using the Web UI if you can get it working some how.

__________________
Digital Deviation - http://digitaldeviation.com

Re: Web UI is the future?

clevelandd — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:44:42 GMT

TAMW-- I cannot find the "native console app" that you mentioned. Could you please provide the default on Linux to it's installation or at least the file name so that I can search for it?

By the way-- I'm not talking about the MS Windows application-- my site is largely *nix based.

Thanks for your help!

Re: Web UI is the future?

hellstrm — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:12:25 GMT

There isn't one. Linux isn't important enough apparently.

Re: Web UI is the future?

bishoptf — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:19:14 GMT

Illaire wrote:

Peter_vm wrote:

hellstrm wrote:
So, I've rolled back to using 1.0.4,and will probably wait until v3.0 comes out with the old console access, (which is after vmware discover the huge mistake they made).

What if VMware Server version 2.0 is the last version of this product line?

Xen? Is that you?

More seriously, we can switch to another virtualisation plaform should vmware server become obsolete, and this should be not that difficult. I don't think this is happening anytime soon, ever.

ROFL..:^0:..+1 for me, can you say kvm, virtualbox, openvz, and more...I use vmware because your tools are better, if the tools are no longer better then i use something else, ain't competition great....

Re: Web UI is the future?

nota — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:20:23 GMT

What is the name and full path for the the "thick client" on Linux. I am having trouble finding it.

thx

Re: Web UI is the future?

Illaire — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:58:40 GMT

Peter_vm wrote:

hellstrm wrote:
So, I've rolled back to using 1.0.4,and will probably wait until v3.0 comes out with the old console access, (which is after vmware discover the huge mistake they made).

What if VMware Server version 2.0 is the last version of this product line?

Xen? Is that you?

More seriously, we can switch to another virtualisation plaform should vmware server become obsolete, and this should be not that difficult. I don't think this is happening anytime soon, ever.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Peter_vm — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:21:37 GMT

hellstrm wrote:
So, I've rolled back to using 1.0.4,and will probably wait until v3.0 comes out with the old console access, (which is after vmware discover the huge mistake they made).

What if VMware Server version 2.0 is the last version of this product line?

Re: Web UI is the future?

hellstrm — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:03:49 GMT

I thought I'd voice my opinion as well. I'm a vmware user since the early days. I used to use workstation on my Linux laptop/PC and use vmware infrastructure in Linux production. I've found it a whole lot easier, though, to use vmware-server to create VMs on either my laptop or my work PC to be used in our production environment. It's thin, I can bounce VMs from the command line, and is rock solid.

The new webUI direction is a bad idea. It basically stops me from being able to do this. The vmware 'package' now consumes around 500M of disk space, and consumes around 400M of memory. I usually have 2-3 VMs running at once, and this is no impossible. It's sluggish and keeps crashing firefox. Not, only that, but the requirements for running firefox.... it just all adds up.

So, I've rolled back to using 1.0.4,and will probably wait until v3.0 comes out with the old console access, (which is after vmware discover the huge mistake they made).

.... Another disgruntled vmware customer.

Re: Web UI is the future?

blackpuma — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:25:46 GMT

... and don't need or want to pay for vmwkst bloatware

Hmm... I wouldn't call Workstation bloatware. It's an awesome tool for those of us who rely on it on the desktop.

(Waiting for Workstation for OS X. Fusion is awesome and does a lot of what I want, but it's not intended to be Workstation.)

Re: Web UI is the future?

devzero — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:07:19 GMT

mhhh - i think vmware server`s position has always been difficult.

there`s always something wrong with it.

when it was gsx, it was too expensive

when it was server 1.x it was to cheap and probably not taken important/seriously enough (also by vmware, otherwise they would have better listened to the userbase) and the question is if it really helped to make esx sales go up.mabye it made workstation sales go down! furthermore, many users wished it had all the good features of workstation, but vmare couldn`t do that, because nobody would buy workstation then....

now when it becomes such bloated beast with 2.x,i`m sure it will loose some users which move to other, free virtualization solutsions.

i think it would be good, if vmware-server would be "slim" as before, having a native linux and windows console.

furthermore i think a dual licensing model for a "hosted server product" could be also good:
a free version as before and an enhanced version with small pricing footprint (around workstation price) but with all the features of workstation.
maybe the best approach would be adding a real remote-console-interface to workstation and make it an option to use workstation like vmware-server ?
i`m sure i would like it and i would buy workstation as a better replacement for server then. it would be worth the bucks to me.

regards
roland

ps:
just saw the answer of rrdharan after writing these lines...

Message was edited by: devzero

Re: Web UI is the future?

rrdharan — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:54:12 GMT

I feel like it might be useful to clarify what I was asking about earlier w.r.t. Workstation versus Server, so here goes.

VMware has several virtualization products that employ elements of the same core "hypervisor/x86 hardware virtualization" technology: Fusion, Player, Workstation, Server, ESX, "VDI" etc.

Each of them is supposed to support a certain set of use cases, that represent problems, and thus needs, and therefore opportunities, for our technology and business to address.

The reason that they are different products is because in general, it's easier to design software that works well for the targeted use cases if you limit the use cases. In practice, our users often find that their needs fall somewhere in the middle, and so they're forced to make tough choices. The absence of one key feature can make a big difference; a lot of the times, this absence was not obvious to us at the time that we were designing/prioritizing the features in each product, but is obvious to you folks.

Let's take the specific example of Workstation versus Server, which is of particular interest to me since I've spent several years working on both of these products.

A long time ago, Workstation was our only product (and in fact it wasn't called Workstation, it was just called "VMware"). So it was employed in a variety of wildly different use cases, including server consolidation, desktop consolidation/secure desktop delivery, software QA/automation, improving developer productivity, backup, hackers/hobbyists, etc.

Then as we got bigger, we started splitting out and delivering the technology into different products depending on the use case. Fast forward to today, and all of these products, including Workstation, still have numerous use cases, but a lot of the times it's clearer and we can say "if you want secure desktops, go with Workstation ACE", "if you want desktop consolidation, use VDI", "if you want to run Windows on your Mac, go with Fusion", "if you want high performance enterprise server consolidation, go with ESX".

The distinction between Workstation and Server, however, is still quite murky, and there are use cases that end up falling through the cracks and/or users have to make tough choices, but this is exactly something we're actively trying to address. In Workstation 6, we added a lot of new e.g. we merged ACE back into Workstation, we added headless/background VM support, we added scripting via Foundry and vmrun, we increased RAM limits, we made it easier to deal with large numbers of running VMs, etc. Many of the things we added into Workstation were specifically to address people whose use case mostly fits Workstation, but found themselves running Server.

Meanwhile, a lot of things we are adding into Server 2.0 are specifically to address people who are good candidates for Server: these folks want something that is simple to deploy and evaluate (in contrast to ESX with its limiting HCL and complex setup), that can be managed by virtual center, that exposes and shares the VI3 API/SDK to allow for complex administration tasks, that has a more flexible and explicit ACL-based security model, and that can be used for lightweight server consolidation, and as an 'onramp'/introduction to our vision of the enterprise datacenter running ESX and VI. I can go more into detail here but I'll leave it up to our product marketing people to explain it, or you can just go to vmware.com and actually read about what we are trying to address.

A very simplistic rule of thumb that I like to employ is that if the OSes you're running in VMware are primarily workstation OSes, a.k.a. desktop OSes, e.g. Windows XP, Fedora, Ubuntu (desktop), SLED, RHEL, Gentoo, etc.), and you're spending a lot of time actually using those OSes directly and the quality of the interactive user experience is of primary concern, then you should probably be running Workstation. (Hence the name!) And if you want something that can do a lot of what Workstation can do, but is free, then you should go get the VMware Player.

Meanwhile, if you're running web servers, source-control servers, file servers, mail servers, jabber/IM/IRC servers, etc., then you should probably be running ESX Server. And if you want something that does a lot of what ESX does, but is free, then you should run Server. (Hence the names!)

Now, obviously this doesn't always work. For example, as noted, there are still people, many of whom have commented here already, who want a product from us that doesn't exist, or doesn't quite exist. Neither Workstation nor Server is anywhere near perfect, even for what they're supposed to be doing. The lack of autostart/run-as-service support for VMs in Workstation is a pretty good example of this - many of you who have commented already about how much you hate Server 2.0 and liked Server 1.0 would probably be really happy with Workstation if it could do this properly. I have relayed this ability back up the food chain and it's my sincere hope and belief that we'll fix it for you.

Similarly, there are other users (including for example many existing ESX customers) who are completely stranded right now because they wanted something that looks a heck of a lot like Server 2.0, but it just doesn't exist. Hence Server 2.0.

A final observation. None of this is meant to be an excuse for all the usability or resource consumption or performance problems or bugs that people are complaining about with respect to the beta 1. To that end, I don't have anything to say other than to (perhaps pointlessly?) repeat the answers/excuses/replies that have already been trumpeted in this thread: it's a beta, it will get better, we're working to address your concerns, please file SRs, and so on.

Re: Web UI is the future?

osde.info — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:41:51 GMT

many thanks - if i hadn't spent so much time battling with vmwesx delta/diffs/redos/snapshots last week i could have spent more time looking at oracle xen vm !

regards
clive (aka osde.info)
http://www.vizzr.info

points=prizes
so please click helpful answer or correct answer when appropriate
(but where's the unhelpful button ?)

Re: Web UI is the future?

jperlow — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:33:36 GMT

its optional but that makes it no different than any other implementation of xen if you just use the command line tools.

If I'm going to use Xen I want XenCenter and XenServer... its free and now polished at this point

Re: Web UI is the future?

osde.info — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:29:02 GMT

i thought oracle xen vm manager was optional like vmwvc ?

regards
clive (aka osde.info)
http://www.vizzr.info

points=prizes
so please click helpful answer or correct answer when appropriate
(but where's the unhelpful button ?)

Re: Web UI is the future?

jperlow — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:08:41 GMT

Oracle VM requires a lot of infrastructure to implement and it certainly is no competition for VMWare Server.

However, Citrix's free XenServer Express 4 (XenCenter admin console is just as good as VMWare's VI client, but is windows only - its a .Net app) , free VirtualBox (RDP console interface, runs on Windows, Linux and Mac) and Qumranet (Commercial implementation of KVM) certainly are.

Re: Web UI is the future?

JoeDiMeo — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:59:20 GMT

" we'll be forced to switch to oracle xen vm server instead !"

A bit of friendly advice:

You might want to take a long hard look at Oracle VM before you make a statement like that...

The VMWare Server 2.x beta with all of its warts is light years ahead in functionality of the Oracle VM version of Xen. In fact, after approximately 2 weeks of "exploring" Xen as implemented by Oracle, I'm beginning to wonder what all of those who have said that Xen is major competition to VMWare are smoking!

Re: Web UI is the future?

osde.info — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:48:18 GMT

... the more specific your feedback, the easier it is for us to accomplish that goal ..

how about :

all we want is firefox/mono versions of vmwvc, vmwvic and the vmwsvr 2 beta client or we'll be forced to switch to oracle xen vm server instead !

is that specific enough ?

regards
clive (aka osde.info)
http://www.vizzr.info

points=prizes
so please click helpful answer or correct answer when appropriate
(but where's the unhelpful button ?)

Re: Web UI is the future?

osde.info — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:44:19 GMT

vmwvi is just new "branding" of vmwesx and consists of vmwvc (optional & windoz only) and vmwvic (windoz only) as well as vmwesx 3 itself

regards
clive (aka osde.info)
http://www.vizzr.info

points=prizes
so please click helpful answer or correct answer when appropriate
(but where's the unhelpful button ?)

Re: Web UI is the future?

osde.info — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:38:39 GMT

... interesting and important ... ?

there are DOZENS of reasons to use VMware Server instead of VMware Workstation in fact I haven't used workstation since 2004 since i've had access to plenty of vmwesx servers and don't need or want to pay for vmwkst bloatware

regards
clive (aka osde.info)
http://www.vizzr.info

points=prizes
so please click helpful answer or correct answer when appropriate
(but where's the unhelpful button ?)

Re: Why Using Server?

blackpuma — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:14:50 GMT

Produce a nice, stable, but fast moving platform to try out new ideas and stabilize existing ones in a free product (e.g. VMware Server, Fedora)
and then move those ideas/features into a very stable enterprise product once they're fully baked (e.g. ESX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux).

I hope not. :grin: Fedora's been anything but stable, nor does it advertise itself as such. It's a fabulous test bed that seems to benefit all involved, of course.

We switched from Fedora to the CentOS distro heavily because it is the solid, stable RHEL (without the branding and support, of course). We encourage clients that want the support and/or warm fuzzies to buy RHEL licenses.

If that is indeed the path that VMware is taking, then they will always have motivation

Certainly. I've not seen anything from VMware to support this idea, but certainly.

I have no delusion that VMware is resting on its laurels, and have the utmost respect for the people working there. They have a stellar development department no matter how you slice it!

Sorry if I've gone off topic. I'm going to take another crack at installing and using Server 2 beta this weekend. Hopefully it's work, now that I'm aware that it's not the no-brainer install that Server 1 has. Then I'll be able to contribute something constructive on the web UI.

Re: Why Using Server?

osde.info — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:25:14 GMT

Oracle Xen VM Server looks likely to be the killer app to me ! and eWeek think VMware may be lucky to have 8 percent of the market by 2011 !

regards
clive (aka osde.info)
http://www.vizzr.info

points=prizes
so please click helpful answer or correct answer when appropriate
(but where's the unhelpful button ?)

Re: Why Using Server?

djflux — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:27:46 GMT

While don't mind the fact that Server is free, the fact that it's free bothers me because (1) it takes resources to develop and maintain, and (2) if it's not producing revenue, VMware won't ever have the motivation to keep it competitive. I would feel better about a pay version of Server because it would get more attention, and it would fill a gap between the "nothing" and OMG! price points that Server and ESX occupy right now.

We might be heading off topic for this thread, but here's my 2 cents:

If VMware does not have this in mind then they should: it appears to me as if they are starting to go the development route of Red Hat and Fedora. Produce a nice, stable, but fast moving platform to try out new ideas and stabilize existing ones in a free product (e.g. VMware Server, Fedora) and then move those ideas/features into a very stable enterprise product once they're fully baked (e.g. ESX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux).

If that is indeed the path that VMware is taking, then they will always have motivation to continue development of Server because it is the basis for new features in their enterprise products.

Being a public company now, I doubt they are rest on they're laurels waiting for MS, XenSource (Citrix), or another competitor to come take food off their table.

Why Using Server?

blackpuma — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:38:06 GMT

~~why using Server if we own Workstation/Fusion~~

To follow up on this, I'd like to say that I don't use Server because it's free, but because it fills a need. I'm hooked on virtualization. I use one VM per project, one VM per task. We're in the process of converting our last dedicated server into four VMs. It burns up disk space and RAM like there's no tomorrow, but neither do I have the system administration headaches of the past.

We're a microscopic sized shop that keeps food on the table and me out of the corporate grind. We keep a close tab on costs, but gladly pay where it makes sense. For example, we run Linux on the colo servers because it's good and it costs nothing, but my loaded MacBook Pro ("portable workstation"), 30" flat panel, and chair cost good money, but they enhance my ability to produce.

While don't mind the fact that Server is free, the fact that it's free bothers me because (1) it takes resources to develop and maintain, and (2) if it's not producing revenue, VMware won't ever have the motivation to keep it competitive. I would feel better about a pay version of Server because it would get more attention, and it would fill a gap between the "nothing" and OMG! price points that Server and ESX occupy right now.

I would gladly pay for Server on a "per host machine" basis, maybe as much as a grand, but for a couple hundred dollars I would whip out the company credit card without hesitating.

I can understand the apparent desire to use Server as a "hook" to entice people to use the more expensive versions... but that assumes that people can afford those, regardless of how gosh darned cool they are. I used Microsoft's on-line license calculator, and I'd be looking at five grand to do what I'm doing with Server. Ugh. No thanks.

Just from my perspective there's a market of small and medium-sized businesses to dominate. VMware doesn't seem to be a player in that market, instead focusing on the big boys. I have a fear Microsoft will end up cleaning VMware's clock (or buying VMware at a deep discount) down the road because of that gap in VMware's apparent strategy.

Re: Web UI is the future?

JoeDiMeo — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:01:56 GMT

"It's close minded thinking like this that does not LET web based
software get better, or innovate. Things only change through
open-mindedness and trial and error. Right now, if you don't like Beta
1, there's no reason to stop you from using the tried and true VMware
Server 1 product. VMware has gotten lots of feedback, both positive and
negative. Let's wait until Beta 2 to see if they've listened before we
pass final judgment on them. I know I haven't. I'm personally hopeful
that they can make the WebUI work. But saying "99% of all
products that have moved to a web interface have failed in their
attempt due to sacrifice or compromise in usability or functionality"
is well and good, but ignoring the fact that there is a 1% left there
that has succeeded. "

Please understand, those of use who have to struggle daily with the results various companies attempts to use a web browser as a substitute for a fat client in getting our work done are not going to be very happy campers to see a product we use productively become front ended by yet another slow as crap web UI. Yes, I'm sure that VMWare will make it run faster, work out the bugs, and present us with the best product they can of the type. I'm also well aware of the "successes" of the Web UI - mostly for some far simpler classes of problems. But to call it closed thinking misses the point. A certain level of functionality has been provided to us by VMWare. That functionality has now been (in our eyes)compromised. We are as part of the beta process giving feedback of precisely the type the VMWare needs to hear - that going to a WebUI as the SOLE interface with the VMWare Server may not be the smartest idea at this point in time.

"Plus there's always the one thing I keep firmly in my mind; this is
software that is provided to us free of charge. Yes, there are other
virtualization vendors out there with free products. That's the beauty
of free choice and an open market. If you don't like it, find a better
alternative. This has been a constant theme in the evolution of both
hardware and software. If you find one company isn't listening, you
find one that is. "

As someone who is currently in the process of evaluating one of the better of those competitors (The Xen based Oracle VM) I can assure you that given a choice between VMWare Server 2 with a Web UI and the Oracle VM in its current state I would take the VMWare server in its current form hands down.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Jason Howe — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:45:10 GMT

I too run server for the vm as a service feature, eventhough I own a copy of Workstation.

Re: Web UI is the future?

GnatGoSplat — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:34:50 GMT

I'm in the same boat. I run VMWare Server because it can run my VM as a service. Well, the fact the Server product is free certainly helps, but the important thing for me is running as a service. I need my guest OS to start up automatically in the background with no users logged in.

Well. There's Gmail. It's not quite a conversion, but it's faster, more stable and slimmer than every thick mail client I've tried given the same volume of mail .

Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to use a web browser to do anything BUT browse the web!
Gmail is fast most of the time and I do have a Gmail account, but I still greatly prefer the look and feel of Outlook 2007. I also like the fact I don't have to log in or remember a password to use my Outlook 2007 thick mail client.

Similarly, I have no interest in Adobe's upcoming web-based Photoshop or Google Docs, Google's web-based spreadsheet and word processor. I'm not sure if I like Office 2007 much, but I'll take it over a web-based office suite any day.

The rising popularity of thin client apps seems to indicate my opinion may be in the minority, but there are just many tasks I do NOT want to use a web browser for.

In fact, the entire reason I use VM at all is so I can run a server guest OS in order to avoid having to use thin clients, like webmail!

I would have been perfectly happy if the 2.0 server product used the EXACT same native client as 1.0.4. All I really wanted out of 2.0 was additional host OS compatibility and working USB 2.0! Had that been the only changes in 2.0, I can't say I would have had any complaints whatsoever.

I can't say I was too thrilled with the VI 2.5 thick client either. It felt slower and required 3 mouse clicks and 2 dozen keypresses (entering User ID & PW) to do what I could do in a single click on the 1.0.x client. 1.0.4 isn't supported on my host OS of choice (Vista 32-bit) and adds about 2-minutes to boot time over 2.0, but I still felt it was worthwhile to switch back.

Re: Web UI is the future?

pcgeek86 — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:23:35 GMT

Not having read through the entirety of this thread, I am simply here to say that the new Web UI is absolutely disgusting!

I have been using VMware Server for maybe ... a couple years now, and I absolutely love it, but the new beta is just terrible. If you're going to use a web UI exclusively, then FINE, but PLEASE make it less ugly, and high performance!

I understand that this is a beta, so take the complaining with a grain of salt, but please make the release version significantly better based on the feedback.

Re: Web UI is the future?

tlyczko — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:20:22 GMT

I agree with Joe's suggestion. Why is it necessary to have THREE different VM management UIs??

Isn't just one enough??

The more I read about VMware the more I appreciate the vast amount of interest and support for it and the more I feel like I have to look at other alternatives as they become available, either for cost or simplicity, etc.

The drawback of course is that VMware anything is still the best for 32-bit machines, the competition (Xen etc.) works best (or only) on 64-bt boxes. If I could go with 64-bit boxes all the time (win the lotto, smile!!) I would, since other tools are cheaper and equally available for 64-bit, though with varying limitations and support, etc. VMware forums, despite the past two months' hassles, are still the best!!

VMware won't be on top forever if they don't improve their pricing relative to the competition, particularly as more people start using the competing products and support etc. increases for the competing options.

VMware is having a LOT of growing pains these days.

Thanks, Tom

Re: Web UI is the future?

Deviation — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:10:52 GMT

Peter_vm wrote:Of course I will post. It was suppose to be a joke. You guys are too serious.

Ok then I'll the 'mean' comments back. ...but I'm leaving my bullet points...

aerobott wrote:I've mentioned that disaster that Novell put it's clients through moving a Java Web interface that's still aweful and is on SP 7.

Novell can't make up its mind on what interface to use. ConsoleOne, NWAdmin, iManager, Remote Manager... The list is endless.

Re: Web UI is the future?

blackpuma — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:52:19 GMT

This is a very interesting and important comment in my mind. So you actually own workstation? Why do you use Server? I'm asking seriously.

I own Workstation (both Linux and Windows versions) as well as Fusion. I also run Server 1. Heck, I've run Workstation since the first Linux version.

I run Server on colocated R&D machines precisely because I can run as a service. Being able to force kill the Fusion UI and run as a service is frickin' awesome.

I would gladly run the heavier-duty products, but the price point is astronomical for a microscopic sized shop like ours.

I have a couple of small servers in VMs that I'd to run in the office. I've not thrown out the idea of getting a dedicated MacNugget (Mac Mini) and running Fusion headless. I consider this because we were a 100% Linux (host OS) shop, but since Apple has Un*x under the hood, we've slowly replaced all the machines with Macs, running Linux and Windows in virtual machines now. It wasn't planned that way, but that's what happened.

Serious answer above. Admitted juvenile griping follows. Feel free to ignore.

Well. There's Gmail.

To me, there has to be a compelling reason to move my mail. I've been able to drag my multi-gigabyte mail folder around across operating systems as I've upgraded development machines, using Thunderbird. The data is there regardless of whether there is any 'Net access. Yes, there are a zillion neat features, but there is nothing compelling. Plus, I've gotten tired of rendering differences between browsers and OSes. I don't know why I should give up something that's pretty darned good for being a perpetual guinea pig.

As a software engineer, during the day-to-day grind, the user shouldn't have to think about doing stuff. My products should be invisible. Completely reliable. No surprises.

So far VMware has excelled in this. Reading the manual is rarely necessary, installation has largely been a no-brainer. This level of quality is tough to do and you guys have done an astoundng job.

I freed up an older machine to test this beta on. (Laptop, Athlon 1900+, 1GB RAM.) Wiped the drive, put a fresh CentOS 5 install on it.

I've spent over four hours total trying to get this d**m beta to work. This has NEVER happened to me before with VMware betas. I've come to expect VMware betas to be as good as other company's production software. My experience has been awesome. Even the quirky Fusion betas were solid and usable.

I'll give feedback on the web UI >>> WHEN <<< I can get it running. I'm hopping mad right now and will try to tackle this later. This has never been a problem with the fat GUIs.

As for the "developing for multiple OSes is expensive," going to a web UI is still philosophically the same (if not worse) than developing for multiple OSes. Instead of multiple OSes, one has multiples OSes PLUS multiple web clients and buggy Javascript, plug-ins (not always available for all OSes), and so on. So developers say "use this browser" instead of "use this OS." Yes, I've been down this road, too.

Case in point. You already know the UI doesn't work on Safari on OS X. Yeah, I have Firefox installed (I rarely use it now) but there's a fundamental question, why should the user be forced this way? This is fundamentally no different than a fat GUI that runs only under certain OSes. I have Fusion for that. It's awesome and slick. Now I'm forced to choose a different browser rather than an OS? Crap. I'd rather that you give me a polished (*#&(@ Windows-only client that I can install into a VM since I'm running Fusion already.

I'm not trying to be hostile. I'm just really edgy after one of the biggest letdowns I've had with VMware. Thanks for putting up with getting that off my chest. I'll go finish up some work and hit the bed..

Re: Web UI is the future?

blackpuma — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:34:58 GMT

Re: Web UI is the future?

aerobott — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:00:25 GMT

Google Earth does virtually nothing. It's simply using an image viewer plug-in that can do overlays, for a Web browser . That's a horrid comparision. It's a cute product, but it doesn't require the sophistication that your server management products do. The same can be said about Peoplesoft 8. It's simply sending text strings to a database. Calculated fields are done via queries or for large calculations, stored procedures are used on the server side. Microsoft's UI for Windows Update Server is one of the worst Web/C# projects I've seen. If it's not locking up, its crashing loosing all your changes.

Neither of these products are good comparisons to a product that has to interact with an interface that manages threads, device drivers, I/O, and other fairly sophisticated processes that VMWare does.

Web interfaces are great for working with atomic SQL queries, not running the farm.

I've mentioned that disaster that Novell put it's clients through moving a Java Web interface that's still aweful and is on SP 7. In all catagories, Beta 2 is going to have to improve, or else it's time to move on.

I'll see what Beta 2 looks like before ditching the product.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Illaire — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:55:38 GMT

v0lks wrote:

If (c), I point out that writing native clients for multiple OSes costs more development time and money, so you're not comparing apples to apples.

Using the webUI console is not an pretty option. You could provide VMware Server 2 Beta 1 with at least an easy to use (switching, screen real estate) windows/linux fat client for the console.

This would mitigate the hurting, to me: less developpement and time on your side, less console frustration on users side. However, this would mean that VMware Server 2 will have a reduced friendliness over VMware Server 1.0.x, and we would still have to bear Tomcat.

Could be ok or not, I don' t know.

Re: Web UI is the future?

eot — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:24:51 GMT

COME ON PEOPLE. This is Beta 1. People are reacting like this is an RC cycles we're on where we've been complaining for a year with no resolve. It's close minded thinking like this that does not LET web based software get better, or innovate. Things only change through open-mindedness and trial and error. Right now, if you don't like Beta 1, there's no reason to stop you from using the tried and true VMware Server 1 product. VMware has gotten lots of feedback, both positive and negative. Let's wait until Beta 2 to see if they've listened before we pass final judgment on them. I know I haven't. I'm personally hopeful that they can make the WebUI work. But saying "99% of all products that have moved to a web interface have failed in their attempt due to sacrifice or compromise in usability or functionality" is well and good, but ignoring the fact that there is a 1% left there that has succeeded.

Plus there's always the one thing I keep firmly in my mind; this is software that is provided to us free of charge. Yes, there are other virtualization vendors out there with free products. That's the beauty of free choice and an open market. If you don't like it, find a better alternative. This has been a constant theme in the evolution of both hardware and software. If you find one company isn't listening, you find one that is.

So, is there much point in beating this dead horse? Its already become dog food and glue, so lets wait for Beta 2. I know I'm anxious to see what's changed and improved. If nothing, or somehow its gotten worse, we'll have a new horse to beat

Cheers!

If VMware Inc / EMC is determined

alizard — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 03:44:30 GMT

to give the Linux part of the VMware Server a Web GUI we don't want, we can't stop you, our only option is to find competing products from competitors set up more to our liking. Living with this isn't an option, the performance hit and the extra real estate for a web browser are things I don't see any reason to tolerate.

I switched to VMware Server from Win4Lin 9.x because Win4Lin stopped listening to its users, trying to force us to an 'upgrade' to a less capable Win4Lin Pro we didn't want. The Win4Lin discussions of this problem finally turned to "Goodbye" as we concluded that the problem was NOT going to be fixed. I will never use another product from Win4Lin Inc., and I'm sure there are a lot of ex-Win4Lin users that feel exactly the same way.

It appears that VMware Inc has the same attitude towards its users. I don't blame you personally, you are in the unpleasant position of trying to make an unpalatable corporate policy tolerable to a group of unhappy users.

If you've got VMware or EMC options you can cash out, NOW is a good time to do so. When your Linux userbase (as opposed to the small fraction of it that's here) discovers this problem en masse, a drop in userbase as we leave to try competing products will very probably show up in decreasing stock prices.

I'm unsubscribing to this discussion, and I don't expect to be buying or recommending for purchase anything from either VMware or EMC any time in the foreseeable future. Though this doesn't mean I'll never mention your product again. I expect to be switching to another virtualization solution and writing another how-to article for someone or other, and the first part of the article will mention why I switched to it from VMware Server.

VMware Server is just another fine product ruined by the suits. It's really too bad.

Re: Web UI is the future?

v0lks — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 03:13:15 GMT

I completely understand that "all of the above" is how many of you feel. The goal of my question, however, was to get to the heart of how we can improve your experience over the course of this beta cycle. (a) and (c) are arguably mutually exclusive, since (a) says "I'd be happy if the UI were better" and (c) says "I don't care how good it gets -- it's still a web UI".

Web UI based products can be successful, such as google maps and the highly successful PeopleSoft 8; trust me when I say that our priority is to make this product one that you will be excited about and can trust. The more specific your feedback, the easier it is for us to accomplish that goal.

Re: Web UI is the future?

ckloiber — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:10:05 GMT

I though d) was "all of the above".

I have never seen the "Virtual Infrastructure" product.

Chris Kloiber

Re: Web UI is the future?

ckloiber — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:10:05 GMT

Chris Kloiber

Re: Web UI is the future?

jperlow — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:08:39 GMT

I was going to say the same thing but you beat me to it.

It should be noted that the "Shutdown" column in Linux Magazine is the last page in the book, and is designed to be the "pot stirrer" column -- to make people think and to raise issues. So it wasn't written to be hostile. I am and always have been a big fan of VMWare as a company, a technology and a product.

The following is a link to a presentation at a VMWare TSX in Las Vegas in 2007. It was meant to address ESX as a candidate for Open Source, but the same could certainly be done for VMWare Server. If VMWare would like to have a sit down with the community, I'm open to it and would be happy to be one of its representatives.

http://www.theuw.net/~perlow/shared/JasonPerlow-OpenESX.pdf

Re: Web UI is the future?

ckloiber — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:00:08 GMT

Yeah, I have personal TechNet Plus subscription, but there's this
"chicken and egg" problem going on. You can't install a Windows VM if
you can't manage the VMware Server. Since I'm using it for personal use,
more hardware isn't an option at the moment. Maybe when I win the lotto?

Chris Kloiber

Re: Web UI is the future?

JoeDiMeo — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:38:51 GMT

"This is a very interesting and important comment in my mind. So you
actually own workstation? Why do you use Server? I'm asking seriously.
Is it just for the 'run-VM-as-a-service' (which is
a very real and very stupid limitation of WS6, and I believe we can,
should, and will address it, hopefully in the near future)."

Actually I had worked with workstation since version 2.x and abandoned it for VMWare Server 1.x because it allowed me to run VM's on my desktop as services. the ability to run a VM as a service coupled with the ability to set a VM to restart if the host rebooted is an important feature that meant more to me tha all the fancy snapshot functions of the workstation product. I only upgraded my TWO workstation Copies to 6.x when I needed to implement OS's that required the capability of the workstation 6 VM type and very happily de-installed workstation 6 when the VMWare Server 2.0 beta arrived. If VMWare were to add the run as service feature, I would indeed return to workstation in a heartbeat.

BTW your product provides a great platform to evaluate the Oracle VM ..... But thats another story

Re: Web UI is the future?

rrdharan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:19:50 GMT

As far as your comment is concerned, to be perfectly blunt, that's not our problem its yours.

Yes, agreed.

The simple fact of the matter is Web Clients perform like crap in comparison to fat clients -
I have yet to see a sucessful conversion to a web client of a fat client based anything
that didnt involve either a) dropping functionality or b) making something that was horribly
slow and less stable than the original.

Well. There's Gmail. It's not quite a conversion, but it's faster, more stable and slimmer than every thick mail client I've tried given the same volume of mail .

Do not count on your competitors being behind forever.

Believe me when I say that this is so far from the truth of what goes on at VMware that it's actually humorous to hear it suggested here. That is in no way the reason or justification for why we are trying to move forward with a web UI. But sadly I'm not really allowed to talk about it at length here. Perhaps our PM can chime in.

Re: Web UI is the future?

JoeDiMeo — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:09:09 GMT

"If (c), I point out that writing native clients for multiple OSes costs
more development time and money, so you're not comparing apples to
apples."

Ever since I was pointed to the 2.5 Version of th windows VI client, I have been using THAT to work with the VMWare Server 2.0. The only time I have returned to the web client is to be able to select the VMWare Server2 VM type for VM's that I am creating. If I was forced to only use the Web UI, I would probably be forced to abandon the VMWare Server 2.0 product and go back to my copy of VMWare workstation 6, which does NOT allow me to run VM's as a service.

As far as your comment is concerned, to be perfectly blunt, that's not our problem its yours. The simple fact of the matter is Web Clients perform like crap in comparison to fat clients - I have yet to see a sucessful conversion to a web client of a fat client based anything that didnt involve either a) dropping functionality or b) making something that was horribly slow and less stable than the original. If you want to keep the good will of those who use and recommend your products, you may need to bite the bullet and make available native clients for Linux and Windows.

Do not count on your competitors being behind forever.

Re: Web UI is the future?

alizard — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:18:30 GMT

all of the above.

I use VMware Client as part of my workstation environment that I use to make a living with, At this point, I write Linux articles for publication for money. I can't afford to have the performance of my computer significantly degraded or go through time-consuming workarounds in order to make my virtualization workable.

At this point, the beta isn't even worth a try from my point of view, if I were to install and review it for publication (on a separate drive, I certainly wouldn't try it on a setup I actually use for business), I'd have to write a review for it that would make Jason Perlow's published article about it look friendly.

Is VMware going to make the console available for Linux users or has development of the console been permanently shut down? In other words, should people who depend on VMware Client on the desktop should look elsewhere for a virtualization solution as soon as VMware Server v1.x becomes unusable with a future Linux kernel release?

Re: Web UI is the future?

Peter_vm — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:03:32 GMT

I feel there is also (d) desire to make free VMware Server to look like it's big brother - Virtual Infrastructure

Re: Web UI is the future?

v0lks — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:50:20 GMT

I'm curious for feedback as to specifically why people are yearning to run the VI client instead of the web UI. Is it because (a) the web UI is slow, lacks functionality, buggy, and unintuitive, (b) it hogs real estate and can only be as stable as the browser is, (c) you want a native client no matter how good the web UI is because native clients will always run faster?

If (a), may I say that this is first beta release? Internally (not yet released), it already has gotten significantly better in terms of performance and usability, and features are getting added and bugs fixed constantly of course. Don't give up on us just yet

If (b), we're exploring options of being able to address the screen real estate issue and mitigating the possibility of browser crashes.

If (c), I point out that writing native clients for multiple OSes costs more development time and money, so you're not comparing apples to apples.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Illaire — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:34:48 GMT

Peter_vm wrote:

Of course I will post. It was suppose to be a joke. You guys are too serious.

Yeap But it does show that this issue really matters! VMware, I'm looking at you!

Re: Web UI is the future?

Peter_vm — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:16:23 GMT

Of course I will post. It was suppose to be a joke. You guys are too serious.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Deviation — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:32:12 GMT

Peter_vm wrote:Then you need a platform to run this indispensible tool: it is called Windows and every one knows about it. Easily available but not cheap. You can have it running as a virtual instance.

Wow. That's one the most ignorant comments I've seen posted in a long time.

1) Windows licenses cost money
2) What happens when your instance to manage the VMs is non-responsive? You can't follow that VM through the boot up process to troubleshoot it. The same goes for ANY VMs installed on that box unless you have a Windows instance to watch them with.
3) Some shops are Windows free or trying to get there. This isn't a viable option for them.
4) They removed a very well used & well liked feature from their product. That makes no sense. Unless of course VMware is secretly trying to abandon its Linux users....

Hopefully you'll not post in this thread again.

Re: Web UI is the future?

djflux — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:20:46 GMT

What if your Windows instance IS a VM? So now you have to either use the Web UI to get console access to your VM and then run the VIC inside the VM so that you can use it to have console access to other VMs running on the host OR use RDP to access the VM to use the VIC. Neither of which are very elegant solutions especially if you need console access to the Windows VM on which the VIC is installed.

As stated elsewhere (either in this thread of another), sometimes one has to have console access to install and/or test software (RDP won't work). Also the Web UI limits screen real-estate within the VM and some people just can't run full screen.

Getting a native version of the VIC or helping something like the Wine project get the VIC running under Wine are probably the only things that are going to satisfy non-Windows users.

Re: Web UI is the future?

jmmarton — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:20:22 GMT

Peter_vm wrote:
Then you need a platform to run this indispensible tool: it is called Windows and every one knows about it. Easily available but not cheap. You can have it running as a virtual instance.

I'm sorry, but that's a pretty lame comment. First of all, someone may only have a single server running VMware Server so running the VI client in a virtual instance probably won't work. Plus there are more and more environments trying to remain completely Windows-free, and it's pretty ignorant of VMware to simply say "too bad you must buy at least one copy of Windows if you want to manage our software." In that case people will simply move to Xen which is quickly gaining ground on VMware.

Joe

Re: Web UI is the future?

Illaire — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:19:53 GMT

Peter_vm wrote:

Then you need a platform to run this indispensible tool: it is called Windows and every one knows about it.
Easily available but not cheap.

Well... We used to have a perfectly working linux client in the VMware Server 1.0.x line, easy to use, quick, convenient. No need to have a windows system to use VMware Server. Perfect if you're a linux shop, and free.

After upgrading to VMware Server 2.0 Beta 1, you'll have to use windows even if solely for VMware control, or be stuck with that awful webUI, inferior to was VMware Server 1.0.x offered. That's not nice.

Those forums are written to by people taking time to test, to give feedback, most of them VMware devoted users. They try to make the product better, instead of just give up and not upgrading or switching to another virtualisation software. Stating something on the line of "Just run windows, he!" is ignoring this feedback[1]. I hope VMware will know better.Peter_vm wrote:

You can have it running as a virtual instance.

Do I smell a chicken-and-egg issue here?!

[1] And in the same line: some feedback on Support Requests would be great...

Re: Web UI is the future?

Peter_vm — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:55:24 GMT

Then you need a platform to run this indispensible tool: it is called Windows and every one knows about it. Easily available but not cheap. You can have it running as a virtual instance.

Re: Web UI is the future?

ckloiber — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:40:17 GMT

Perhaps because my computer runs a 64 bit Fedora Linux?

Chris Kloiber

Re: Web UI is the future?

Peter_vm — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:29:21 GMT

Why can't you use Windows 32bit OS for VI Client?

Re: Web UI is the future?

smartpeak — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:43:11 GMT

Um the VI client is not available on Linux or 64-bit versions of Windows, and I can't even get the Web client to get past the login screen on Windows 2003 yet.

Simon

Re: Web UI is the future?

Deviation — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:41:18 GMT

I have to say I'm with the rest of the group here. The web ui console is ok for quick tasks, but I actually have to TEST software using VMware. That's not always possible with an RDP session. Some pieces of software act crazy when you're in a session as opposed to the console.

Bring back the standalone console pleeeeeeaaaassseee!

On another note, I do like the new stuff in the web ui. Its got some quirks, but this is a BETA. I'm sure if we keep giving VMware feedback they will listen and address the issues. hint hint

For what its worth, the windows VI Client is a 30MB install. The rest is the .NET redistributable they packed with it.

Re: Web UI is the future?

JoeDiMeo — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:00:49 GMT

I finally followed instructions and extracted viclient 2.5 from the Linux beta package. MUCH better to deal with. At least now I dont have to play beat the boot. If VMWare wants to head off the palace revolt that seems to be brewing in this thread, I STRONGLY suggest that they just extend the create VM wizard in the VI 2.5 Client to allow it to create VM's in the Server 2/Workstation 6 format and just distribute the VI CLient with as the primary access to the server with the Web UI as an Optional backup.

Re: Web UI is the future?

tommeyboy — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:01:42 GMT

I'm definately not a happy with the change to use a Web UI for managing Virtual Server 2.x. The management interface is very clunky and not very responsive. I'm using Virtual Server 2.x on a couple of multi purpose servers that are already tight on memory as it is and having tomcat installed is just chewing up additional resources.

Re: Web UI is the future?

Steltek — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:55:49 GMT

While I don't know the Windows version, I did see my Linux version complain that I was running my VMs with Debug mode on, and simultaneously had it tell me that I cannot disable debug mode in the beta. Debug mode does of course cost you some performance on the VMs, so this might still get fixed in later versions (even though the added Tomcat server will still eat away its share of physical RAM).

Re: Web UI is the future?

tlaurent — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:46:55 GMT

While I am not a fan of the UI - I am even LESS of a fan of Tomcat (at least how its been implemented under the Windows version). This seems bloated - I realize that this is a complete rewrite of Server 1 and probably should be considered a version 1 product beta but I think there needs to be some serious tweaks under the hood. I've had VMware server 1 running on this box for a long time with no problems, but after installing the beta - even after increasing the boxes physical memory the performance has been extremely slow and I've noticed a lack of responsiveness.

I will definitly look forward to seeing what the next version brings.

Ted

Re: Web UI is the future?

Steltek — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:27:35 GMT

Yes: Where are the icons I could click to mount ISOs and that show status information (network traffic, hdd activity, ...)? To do operations like mounting, installing VMware tools etc, I now have to switch AWAY from the console and then back.

Have you ever tried resizing this thing to get rid of the scrollbars? It's a huge hassle, at least make the window 'floatable' so that it uses just the right amount of space. Right now you're stuck with either having to scroll around, or wasting screen space because 'black bars' around your actual VM output. Needless to mention the UI that is permanently wrapped around your console also wastes space and no, going 'full screen' is not an option either.

I browse in tabs. With a dedicated console, I have a separate task on my taskbar that I can move to a second screen etc etc, with this thing, I have to remember to 'Open in new window' to get that functionality and then I'm still stuck with not being able to differentiate my browser and my VMware console window on the taskbar (again, make the console window 'floatable' and maybe add a favicon to the web iface that can appear in the taskbar).

So far for my qualms with the new interface (and a few suggestions on how to fix them). Sorry if somebody already mentioned them, I admit that I didn't read the entire thread.

Oh and a quick recap for those who need to forward ports or open firewalls, you need at the very least ports 8333 (I access my web interface directly on 8333) and 902. The latter is what the console uses to connect to the VMware server, so if that's blocked by your firewall or not forwarded, you'll get an error message (this is different from the 'blank console' problem).

Re: Web UI is the future?

GnatGoSplat — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:49:45 GMT

I found going from 1.0.4 console to 2.0's Web UI to be FAR worse than going from XP to Vista. I could actually tolerate the slight hit in performance going from XP to Vista! 1.0.4 console to 2.0 Web UI, I couldn't tolerate at all.

Even the VI Client felt a bit more sluggish and cumbersome than the old console. I used 2.0 for 2-weeks with the VI thick client and finally decided to switch back to 1.0.4 since 2.0 seemed to bring only drawbacks for me. The only thing that would have made it all worth the sacrifice is USB support which didn't make it into Beta 1. If the Web UI had been the only option, I couldn't have stuck it out 2-days.

As a general rule, I've found anything that runs in a browser, requires plugins, and/or requires Java VM to be unstable, horribly slow, and intolerable.

Re: Web UI is the future?

worrall — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:23:42 GMT

We concur completely. We are an original GSX reseller and have been using VMware Server since it replaced GSX. The Web UI in 2.0 beta is way too cumbersome and slow and completely unacceptable to us and our clients.

Our test server is running on 15K RPM SAS drives with a Quad Core-2 Duo and system management in the Web UI is like molasses!

I would consider the Web UI upgrade to be the equivilent of upgrading from XP to VISTA, way too slow and buggy.

Joseph R. Worrall
Lakewood Communications
Microsoft Certified Partner
www.lakecomm.com

Re: Web UI is the future?

devzero — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:58:08 GMT

yes, you`re right.

programmers often don`t know anything about efficiency. especially if they program in java.

i have seen different java projects now and everytime when 1GB of ram wasn`t sufficent for something to run fast and stable, you got that answer "so add another gig" and this was often done because it was cheaper to buy the ram instead locking the programmer into the cellar for another week....

Re: Web UI is the future?

jpvm — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:05:00 GMT

I'm running vmware on a Pentium III 1 GHz with 512 MB RAM. I began my computer-career with a Motorola Exorset (which my brother cloned for the company he was working for). It was equiped with one of the first 16-bits processors and 64 KB of RAM......

It's ridiculous that developers of software always think they can put in more and more just because the hardware is getting faster and faster... It's as if they don't take pride in their work to make it as fast as possible......