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norisnetwork
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

How to speed up vSphere Web Client

Hello,

we've got a vCenter Server (as VM - 8 cores, 16GB RAM) and running vSphere 5.1 on all hosts.

Since the upgrade to 5.1 we're using the Web Client (as recommended) - but the Web Client seems to be so much slower than the Windows Client.

Any ideas how to speed up the web client?

Thanks so far,

Greets

Alexander Krogloth

noris network AG

25 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hello Mr. Krogloth,

Long time no see Smiley Happy

What actions exactly seem slow? How do you measure it?

Do you see a better performance when you open the Web Client on the server where it is installed (Google Chrome avoids an Adobe Flash installation on the server directly)?

Which browser are you using?

So far I have only seen the 5.0 logs I believe, did you install the latest version of vCenter 5.1 and the Web Client?

How many users are using the Web Client concurrently?

How large is the environment roughly (hosts, vms)?

Is it installed on the same VM as vCenter Server, Inventory Service, Single Sign On?

8 cores is actually quite alot for a vCenter 4 or 2 should be enough, less is often more in the virtual environment.

Basically the Web Client is a tomcat process with a flash interface talking to another set of tomcat services to display the inventory. So it might be useful to increase the heap memory for these processes.

norisnetwork
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hello 🙂

everything seems slow - login, opening the menu tree etc.

Using chrome on the vCenter seems really to be faster ... but network shouldn't be the problem ... And yes, we really have 5.1 🙂

Concurrently about 20 users are using our system - in summary 18 Hosts in 3 clusters with about 800 VMs.

vCenter is on the same VM as Inventory and SSO

The VM has 4 cores, I didn't remember that right 🙂

Greets,

Alex

admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hello Alex,

> And yes, we really have 5.1 🙂


I was more referring to the build number of 5.1. Is it U1 already? At least some performance improvements were implemented in the later updates. Unfortunately Update 1 also introduced a couple of fixes to SSO which actually allows users to log in now when this was not possible before with the caveat that the general login time might actually take longer depending on the identity sources and ad group membership of the user.


> everything seems slow - login, opening the menu tree etc.


But as you seem to experience the performance issue even after log in this should not be the main reason. Are you using Chrome on the the external clients as well or a different browser (IIRC Chrome was not in the supported browsers list but should be working without too many issues anyway).


Did you try different browser? IE 8, 9, 10, FF, Chrome for example. Do you see a difference? Was the Web Client the only tab opened in the browser with the only instance of that browser running (just to rule out general browser performance degradation).


Is the performance better when you login with a user that is only an SSO administrator (admin@system-domain without vCenter permissions for example)?

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norisnetwork
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hello again,

we're using 5.1 U1 (the latest patch).

All my collegues are using different browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome) - all are saying "its slow and unusable". Using chrome it speeds up a bit, thats true.

Using different users makes no difference. One or more tab in the browser not, too.

Sharantyr3
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

Same thoughts here...

Any help ?

I got support contracts but I'm pretty sure VMware will answer me "change something on your computer" ... Seriously...

We had a working fast multitask windows client, why force us use this laggy heavy monotask web client?


Aren't web client supposed to be light ? What went wrong? How could they pick FLASH over HTML5 ?

....

ALAGARDE
Contributor
Contributor

+1 to the slow web interface (on a SSD client machine)

Josh26
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I'll agree to this - I really don't think you can improve it, that's just what it is.

We had a perfectly good client, and someone made a decision to move to a bulky, bloated interface, that brought nothing with it beyond the inherent loss of reliability and security that accompanies Flash. There's a reason Apple won't support Flash on their mobile devices.

GatorSix
Contributor
Contributor

Completely agree with this post. Web client is garbage, and I don't intend to offend its developers, but it is truly slow. Regardless of the browser, number of hosts or VMs.

I've tried the client on vSphere 5.1, 5.1U1, and now we are on 5.5, but there are no "real" improvements to the interface.

There is a Windows client, but it doesn't support all the features.

Please give us back Windows client for 5.5

wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

One of the VMware guys said that increasing the local storage settings on the Flash Player will speed up the web client. This is a per site setting, so it will not give this amount of storage out to every  site on the web.

Eg. While in the webclient log on screen, right click in your browser and set the storage settings to 1MB instead of the minimal kb's that are allowed by default.

WebclientFlashPlayerSettings.png

Hope this helps,

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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Linjo
Leadership
Leadership

Here is the blogpost: virtuallyGhetto: Quick Tip: Useful Flash Player optimization for the vSphere Web Client & other ...

Best regards, Linjo Please follow me on twitter: @viewgeek If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Ah, so it was indeed from William that I had seen this. I thought he had only mentioned it on twitter, but he even put it on his site. Forgot about that, would have been easier to just link to his site.

Thanks,

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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Dttk
Contributor
Contributor

The Web Client is much slower than the old windows client.  It also crashes frequently. ie waiting for it to timeout and ask if you want to reload the client.  I'm using v5.5 vsphere web client and flash has 1mb limit set, but only currently using 31kb.  If we had to depend on this client, it would bring productivity to stand still.

Has there been any other suggestions/changes that could speed up/fix web client?

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rh5592
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

The following changes improved the web client performance in my customer. So far no more hanged tasks, navigating the web client console was improved. We are still monitoring though.

Increased the JVM heap size of  vSphere Web Client to 3GB. Used the following KB VMware KB: Configuring Tomcat server settings in VMware vCenter Server 5.1 and 5.5

Regards. ================================================= "If found useful, kindly mark answers Correct or Helpful " http://rh5592.com =================================================
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Anjani_Kumar
Commander
Commander

I was also facing the same the same issue . Than i installed the VMware-ClientIntegrationPlugin in to it. And its started responding 10x times faster.

All the best,

Anjani Kumar

-----------------------------------------

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you found it useful.

Anjani Kumar

VMware, Windows

Consulant

Email ID : Anjani.kumar@vmwareminds.com

Website : http://www.Vmwareminds.com

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you found it useful. Anjani Kumar | VMware vExpert 2014-2015-2016 | Infrastructure Specialist Twitter : @anjaniyadav85 Website : http://www.Vmwareminds.com
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MC_jeffhoward00
Contributor
Contributor

I'd like to 2nd this post.  I'll try the tweaks mentioned here, but the reality is, unless you use the web client via RDP ON the actual vCenter server, it's super slow.  Is it usable?  Of course.  But is if frustrating that a clunky old thick-client is considerably faster?  Absolutely.  I'm not saying that the web client is the wrong direction to go, in fact I wholly agree that moving to a platform agnostic browser-based management tool is a must.  However given how many amazing developers VMWare has on staff, I'm really surprised this ended up being a considerably -slower- solution.  The facts are indisputable - same PC, same network, chose your favorite browser - The thick-client is -always- faster than this "next gen" Web UI.  Always, I have yet to see an exception. 

For a customer-satisfaction perspective, that's a tough pill to swallow.  "We're no longer supporting the fast thick-client you've built your IT Ops Team around, please use this new feature rich Web UI that takes (literally) 100% longer to do the exact same tasks".

Super frustrating.

King_Robert
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

1

HOW TO:  Enhance the performance or speed up the VMware vSphere Web Client

Using the same Web Browser you use to access the VMware vSphere Web Client, go to this website Adobe Flash Player Website Storage Settings panel

 

  • Website Storage Settings Panel

Website Storage Settings Panel


This will display a list of websites you have visited using Adobe Flash, and will show the amount of storage reserved for Adobe Flash.

  • Website Storage Settings Panel - Unlimited

Website Storage Settings Panel - Unlimited

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King_Robert
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

1

HOW TO:  Enhance the performance or speed up the VMware vSphere Web Client

Using the same Web Browser you use to access the VMware vSphere Web Client, go to this website Adobe Flash Player Website Storage Settings panel

 

  • Website Storage Settings Panel

Website Storage Settings Panel


This will display a list of websites you have visited using Adobe Flash, and will show the amount of storage reserved for Adobe Flash.

  • Website Storage Settings Panel - Unlimited

Website Storage Settings Panel - Unlimited

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ALAGARDE
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

It runs fine on a high end computer.

(Core i7 4770k, Intel SSD, 16GB Ram)

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Sharantyr3
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Sorry mr troll, no food for you here.

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