I also agree....
It gets worse, though. Not only has export to OVA (apparently) been mothballed, but if you update to ESXi 6.7, (as I shared previously), even exporting an OVF Template (if using the ESXi "Host" GUI) is broken, too. It's not supposed to be (meaning, it wasn't someone's intended consequence). "Rec007" (in another thread) did share with me that vCenter Server's export feature was working--and I (painfully) found out he was correct. I had to make a physical server available (as vCenter is not recommended to be run 'virtually')--oh the irony.... And this took me awhile to accomplish....
We had always managed to 'get by' with just the Host UI (the web-based product for ESXi). We only have 2 host machines and a small number of VMs between them, so even though we had a vCenter license--we weren't using it.... But, I had to break down and create a vCenter Server machine and use one of my vCenter licenses to get it going--I guess I should be thankful I had a license--I realize some aren't as "lucky".
While I was happy to find out I could (finally) export to OVF Template once again, the pain I've experienced since installing vCenter has been exceedingly great.
In Engineering parlance, vCenter Server "...draws a very large vacuum" (that is, it sucks. Mightily). In all my years, I had managed to avoid issues such as:
- Not able to power on a VM
- Not able to login to a VM via VMRC (to shut down the guest OS)--had to RDP to it instead
- Orphaning a VM (not once, but twice)--the first time this happened, the features to "handle" it were greyed out and had to resort to PoweCLI to get rid of it. Installing PowerCLI was an "experience" all by itself. I won't belabor all I had to do for that.... Oh--and I didn't do anything 'wrong' to have orphaned the VM in the first place, either.
- Undue lag time experienced before vCenter finally smells the coffee and reflects status has changed for a given VM (and I have all documented ports open in Windows Firewall Rules, etc.)
- There are many more "issues" too numerous to mention at this juncture.
Frankly, I have a hard time understanding how it is VMware could knowingly ditch their thick client in favor for this sorry excuse of a web-based client--and still--after all this time, still not have even gotten the HTML 5 version of said client fully functional. Myriad entities should not have been forced to become unwitting alpha and beta testers--and to have as many problems with the client that exist even now, is frankly, inexcusable. Again, I am glad I finally got a means of exporting an OVF template (again), but the brick walls I had to endure in exchange for this rudimentary feature, is rather ridiculous.
The thick client was a far better product. It did something vast portions of the web client (still) does not do: It worked.
Whenever I think of vCenter Server, I think of the line from "Star Wars", where Obiwan Kenobi is describing the 'Mos Eisley' space port: "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy".
If this isn't an accurate description for vCenter Server, I don't know what is....
Best Regards,
M. Gentry
