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VMware vCenter Mobile Access Technology Preview is now available posted: Mar 25, 2009 4:11 PM

Click to view Srinivas's profile Enthusiast 95 posts since
Dec 16, 2003
Folks,

It doesn't happen often but when it does, it is a beauty...

We're very excited to announce that we are ahead of schedule so we are releasing the VMware vCenter Mobile Access technology preview bits now. You can download the bits by clicking on the Download button under the Getting Started section at: http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/vcmobileaccess?view=overview&numResults=15. There is a users' guide posted at: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9741. The documentation is actually an easy read so we encourage you to skim through it as you download the product bits.

As mentioned before, a number of us involved in this project will be actively participating in the discussion forums so please post your questions and feature requests in this forum. Your feedback is invaluable to us in fine-tuning this product so please keep it coming. We look forward to your thoughts on vCMA.

S
(on behalf of vCMA team)
Click to view steppylud's profile Novice 10 posts since
Dec 20, 2007

Does this work in ESX 3.02 and VC 2.0?
Click to view imclaren's profile Enthusiast 109 posts since
Oct 26, 2005

Excellent! Installs easily and works like a dream.

Any prospect of getting remote console access in the future? Even a picture of the current screen would be useful B-)

Click to view cabir's profile Enthusiast 30 posts since
Sep 11, 2007
Yes, it should work in ESX3.02 and VC2.0. If you have problem with VC2.0, please report in this forum.
Click to view bkolin's profile Hot Shot 106 posts since
Feb 19, 2006
Remote console access is not likely just because we are doing everything in a platform independent way. Remote screenshot is theoretically possible but there are some internal technical difficulties in making it work. That said, I will certainly not rule it out for the future. Congrats on naming what I think is our first feature request. :D
Click to view steppylud's profile Novice 10 posts since
Dec 20, 2007

Well there is no 'import VM' option as per the user guide. So I FTP the appliance to a datastore, when I go into VC to register the VM it sits 'queued' for 20 minutes or so, and then times out....
Click to view bkolin's profile Hot Shot 106 posts since
Feb 19, 2006
I don't know why that would be, it is a standard vm like any other. Perhaps try registering it while your client is connected directly to a host instead of to the VC instance? What versions of VC and ESX are you running?
Click to view MW_VM's profile Enthusiast 65 posts since
Feb 5, 2007

Hello S,

I was wondering if this would provide iPhone access? I have not had a chance to check this out so sorry if this answer is buried somewhere.

Michael

Click to view lamw's profile Champion 2,803 posts since
Nov 27, 2007
Yes it supports the iPhone both original and 3G.

I've tested and verified on generation 1 of the iPhone, and it works great. I've been able to VPN to our network on both the Edge network and on WiFi and connect to vCMA through the safari browser. It would be awesome to have a native iPhone application for vCMA.

Here's a video and some screenshot courtesy of Eric Sloof: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1030-VMware-Mobile-Access-Technology-Preview-now-available.html


=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
http://twitter.com/lamw

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/vexpert_silver_icon.jpg

Click to view waynejg's profile Novice 11 posts since
Feb 24, 2009
Has there been any thought about restricting the one-click access to providing only the server and user name, i.e. therefore securing it a little more by requesting the password
Click to view lamw's profile Champion 2,803 posts since
Nov 27, 2007
The vCMA preview allows you to keep the session or remove it after you're done. I think it's definitely a good suggestion to allow for this configuration on the backend or perhaps per user basis but I can see why you would want something like this on a mobile device. Though I like the idea, if you save the hostname and username and prompt for the password. I hope when the product GA, the host name can be shorten so you don't need to type in "https:// ... /sdk". If DNS is setup properly on vCMA, then it should know how to resolve a short hostname without requiring the full SDK URL.

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
http://twitter.com/lamw

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/vexpert_silver_icon.jpg

Click to view bkolin's profile Hot Shot 106 posts since
Feb 19, 2006
This is something we were considering. The balance of security and convenience is important so perhaps configurable is the way to go here. Note - you should only need to enter the hostname. If you need to enter the https:// and the /vim, let us know. Yes it will work if you do but we should be auto-appending those as well if you don't. Thanks for the feedback.
Click to view lamw's profile Champion 2,803 posts since
Nov 27, 2007
Let me quickly check to see if hostname works, I recall from the documentation it requires you to pass in the full sdk URL https://your_server/sdk if I'm not mistaken. To get to vCMA page you just need to pass in the http://vcma_server/vim but to connect you need to pass in the full vCenter SDK URL

=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at: http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/
http://twitter.com/lamw

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/vexpert_silver_icon.jpg

Click to view bkolin's profile Hot Shot 106 posts since
Feb 19, 2006
Here's the doc excerpt:

---
Enter the URL or ip address of your vCenter server or ESX host. If the host address is not a fully qualified http URL, the client will automatically attach the “https” protocol and the path “/sdk”. If the URL is fully qualified, it must contain the path “/sdk”, otherwise it will fail.

Some valid host address forms are:

xyz.domain.com
10.20.10.34
10.20.10.215:8443
https://xyz/sdk
https://xyz.domain.com/sdk
https://10.20.108.34/sdk
https://10.20.108.215:8443/sdk
---

If it isn't working for you it is something we'd like to look into. If it does work and you didn't know it, I'm glad you brought it up for discussion since not having to enter all the extra chars is really nice on a mobile device. Good luck!
Click to view waynejg's profile Novice 11 posts since
Feb 24, 2009
I could connect fine using just the IP address of the VC server, i.e. on iPhone established VPN connection, connected to Mobile Access site and entered IP of VC along with user and password.

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