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kgottleib
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vSphere Web Client is so bad that my experience managing and supporting VMware has turn to....

Purpose of this post is simple and obvious...  bring back development to thick client.  THANKS!

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Cyberfed27
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I'm attending the vSphere 6 class all next week. I plan to first observe how the instructor sells the web-client and then drill them hard.

kwolton10
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They will find it hard when even the Vmware tech's hate it and will openly admit it's rubbish when your on the phone to them!

dbringer
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I just logged in to my 5.5 web client to try and do some DR testing and there's absolutely no part of SRM even in there!     VMware need to wake up to the fact that folks want to use the Windows client.   Have the web client for those that want to use it - fine, but nobbling the Windows client and trying to force people to use a client that does not work well AND is missing functionality that is really a bad marketing move.   VMware all you are doing is aggravating your customers!

I sent them a tweet along the same lines, please feel free to add similar comments - https://twitter.com/GricerStuff/status/596253783321116673https://twitter.com/GricerStuff/status/596253783321116673

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bszweda
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I hate the UI on the web client! Please go back to the thick client!

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mlps
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I hate to keep flogging this, but this "webclient" implementation and rollout was and is so wrong in so many ways.  VMware needs to understand this loud and clear and with no mistake or PR or rationalization.

We run a secure airgapped environment.  Among many other things this means 'no flash'.  Among many other things this means that stuff needs to Just Work.  As one poster above said (paraphrased with apologies) "I don't pay a lot of money to have to do the google-this-try-that-maybe-ff-around-to-make-it-work-sometimes thing".  If I was ok with that we'd be doing some kvm derivative.  And then by requiring flash, well did I mention that running a secure airgapped environment means 'no flash'?  This effectively killed the virtualization effort that I have been pushing (uphill, I might add) for two years.  Arguably I should have stopped pushing and just let it go when you guys insisted on flash for v5.5, but I said 'surely flash is interim temporary, and by V6 they'll have done it right'.

I see now I was naive and wrong.

"Fortunately", if that's the right word, the vm's I'm running I can work with via the viclient.  They are all are for convenience, not production.  And it looks like that's the way it will stay.

I mean seriously, anyone could have told vmware (and probably did numerous times ) that this was the Wrong Direction.  I'm not sympathetic with the argument that "well, we were so far along that we had to keep going".  A clearly wrong headed way forward is simply throwing good money after bad, not to mention destroying customer confidence and good will ('Goodwill" is a balance sheet term, btw) when it's shoved down their throat. 

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JMachieJr
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Just curious if anyone else has come across this issue in the web client or if I'm just having a slow brain day. When sorting the datastores by free space in the webclient, it ignores the TB and GB and sorts only based on the numbers. So if I have a 1.5TB datastore with 1.15TB free space it doesn't show up at the top of the list. It's somewhere down in the middle. When I used the thick client it sorts properly based on actual free space. Just another crappy bug 😕

VCP-DCV | MCP | Linux+ Twitter: @James_Machie_Jr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmachiejr
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mwilkinson
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I have not tried vSphere 6.0 yet. But the web client in 5.5 has reduced our efficiency. Our IT dept made a concerted effort to move to the web client. Once getting over finding things, and general changes from the thick client, it was still much slower to use. It doesn't seem to refresh correctly. For example, on a VM power-on event, the icon doesn't change to indicate the system is on unless you refresh. So we've gone back to primarily using the thick client...and are pretty dang happy with it.

I don't understand why the web client? Seriously, why? Is there a technical reason? What was the business decision behind it? I'm not seeing a lot of love out there for it, most the IT folks in the trenches that I know don't care for it. Some are okay with it, but NONE find it an improvement.

Please...consider continuing to support the thick client.

Thanks!

-Mike

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beeguar
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Based on my experience the 6.0 web client is very usable compared to 5.5. Needing to leverage it for new features and the improved speeds I found with it in a lab made me hasten the upgrade to vCenter 6.0.

Morgenstern72
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The web client of 6.0 is much better. Still it has annoying errors (after a remote session a VMWare technician opened an intern ticket to investige the problems with the web plugin).

And it is using flash. Flash is dying, not supported on most platforms now and make a web client obvious. The announcement that a new HML5 client would take 2 years to make really makes me believe hat VMWare has a problem with clients. No way it takes 2 years for a client. And if it takes this long HTML5 is not the way to go since it will be outdated by then. Also now I have plugins (eg from HP) that do not work on the 6.0 web client and C client which means they have to be adapted again.


So please invest your energy in the C-Client. No windows user is complaining that ESX uses a linux/unix system. So no linux user should complain to have on Windows VM with the C Client running.

unsichtbare
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Web Client for vSphere 6 is better, but for any number of reasons, especially Flash, it remains an embarrassment to VMware and all those who advocate its use!

+The Invisible Admin+ If you find me useful, follow my blog: http://johnborhek.com/
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Alistar
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The nicest thing the vCenter (Web)Client Team could do is to develop a HTML5 web client with the interface being exactly the same as in continue developing the Thick Client. That would be a nice band-aid to our pain... in my dreams though Smiley Sad

Stop by my blog if you'd like 🙂 I dabble in vSphere troubleshooting, PowerCLI scripting and NetApp storage - and I share my journeys at http://vmxp.wordpress.com/
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ArjanSchepers
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I get that they wanted to develop a management solution for the people that odn't use Windows. So the thick client is not the final solution for everyone, but developing in Flash has got to be the biggest mistake VMware made, together with the small licensing bug in (I think) ESXi 4.x.

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Cyberfed27
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Well I just got back from the vSphere 6 training. Supposedly web client is "improved" well I'm here to tell you its still HORRID.

Every single day we had web client crash, hang up, or otherwise become useless for everyone in the class about 4 - 5 times a day (mind you that each group of 2 people had their own vCenter (and web client install).

Screens wouldn't reflect the new changes ect... garbage. We had 3 browsers, FF, IE and Chrome and they all had issues. Our entire class was griping about Web client.

Our instructor offered no news of hope, he basically said that VMware is pushing forward and that the plan is that as new VMware admins come into the world that have only used the web client that the older folks used to the thick client will be pushed out. Even VMware doesn't know its own product, in the class we were taught that VMware Update Manager had been fully integrated into web-client. Wrong. We quickly learned you cannot stage or remediate patches through web client. You can only configure your patch baselines. In short web client 5.x gets two thumbs down and the "improved" version 6.0 still gets two thumbs down.

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jlong
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Just had to point this out. At some point enough is enough!

vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2e Release Notes+

Product Support Notices

  • vSphere Web Client.
    • Because Linux platforms are no longer supported by Adobe Flash, vSphere Web Client is not supported on the Linux OS. Third party browsers that add support for Adobe Flash on the Linux desktop OS might continue to function.
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ArjanSchepers
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"might continue to function"

That's what you want to hear from your enterprise cloud solution.

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tricountyit
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Why did VMware do this!!  Seriously, the Vsphere client was so user friendly.  The new web client is absolute crap with a horrible convoluted  layout.  Virtual machine technology is supposed to SIMPLIFY admins life.  This makes it 10 times worse!  Menus upon menus upon menus!  Everytime you make a mouse click you end up at a new menu screen.  Hyper-V is looking better and better everyday I have to use this pile poop web client. 

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drmabuse
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Is there perhaps a way of hacking the vSphere Client to use v6 vCenter?

I guess I'm just wondering if they really removed all the API hooks that makes it possible, or if they just put a little bit of code in that does in a nutshell:

"if ESXi6 host, continue to windows client, else if vCenter detected, display nasty message about being unsupported" :smileysilly:

I wonder if a few well placed nops in the client might bring about a fix.  Yes, it would be completely unsupported, but still...

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AlphapIT
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Well to add to all of this.  I upgraded to 6.0 this past week.  Today I decided to check to see if any of my VM's had snapshots or left over snapshots that needed cleaned up.  I opened the vSphere FAT client and went to go to the storage views tab.  Only to find that the tab is missing.  After a little research vmware decided to get rid of that tab.  In the vcenter 6.0 release notes I found this.  So now I have no way of checking to see if a VM has a snapshot or not.  My only options are to check each VM individually or go to the data store and check the raw files.  There is an option to show a tab if the vm needs consolidation but this column is only a yes or no response.  It would be nice if they would create another column that would show the snapshot disk usage like in the old storage views tab.  This is just another example of kicking you when you are down.  Also to add the web client is still crap.  It is slow when switching between menus and you have to go through so many additional windows to get to features that was a click away in the old client.  On another note vmware says the client is going away in opposition to the vmware community that wants the client to stay.  Vmware still doesn't have a client that can do it all.  If you want to run vmware updates?  Oh guess what you have to use the old client its not available in the web client.  All these decisions that vmware is making is causing us to look at other systems.  Now don't get me wrong I loved vmware its a very stable solution and very resilient.  Very expensive but worth it if you can afford it.  However these management nightmares they are creating is putting a strain on my patience.  For those that are thinking about Hyper-V.  I like Hyper-V in a single host environment but using the SCVMM is horrible.  I mostly manage my Hyper-V cluster using the Failover Cluster manager and not the SCVMM.  I am going to start to look into KVM as another virtual solution.

Product Support Notices

  • vCenter Server database. Oracle 11g and 12c as an external database for vCenter Server Appliance has been deprecated in the vSphere 6.0 release. VMware continues to support Oracle 11g and 12c as an external database in vSphere 6.0. VMware will drop support for Orace 11g and 12c as an external database for vCenter Server Appliance in a furture major release.
  • vSphere Web Client. The Storage Reports selection from an object's Monitor tab is no longer available in the vSphere 6.0 Web Client.
  • vSphere Client. The Storage Views tab is no longer available in the vSphere 6.0 Client.
ArjanSchepers
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You could probably use RVTools to check for snapshots.

So, to manage a vSphere environment you'll need:

-vSphere Web Client (slow, unsafe, Flash based, missing SRM, VUM and probably some other stuff aswell)

-vSphere fat client (only if you have <VM hardware version 10, also missing functions that were in it before)

-RVTools (to check for snapshots in an efficient manner, as opposed to checking each VM individually with the Web Client)

That's a big hole VMware dug out for us. GG & WP.

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Morgenstern72
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VMWare Logic: at least you cannot check your storage on any OS. What a wonderful idea Smiley Wink

By the way, I use RV tools for mass upgrade of vmware tools after upgrades. Did I miss this function somewhere in any of the official clients?

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