Custom attributes vs. folders? Looking for opinions

[skayser]

Greetings,

i would love to get some opinions / use cases on the usage of folders in vCenter. To me, folders seem rather restricted because one can only place a VM in one of them and as soon as there are multiple criteria by which one could classify a VM (like 'prod/dev' and 'location') custom attributes feel much better. So are there any definitive use cases for folders? What do you guys use folders for? Do some 3rd party programs purely rely on folders for selecting VMs? Have you experienced any shortcomings for custom attributes?

Hoping for a lively discussion! Bring it on

Sebastian

[mlubinski]

I am using folders to separate permissions for different purposes This way id there is more than 1 VM in folder, then I can set one permission which then flows down to other objects. I never used custom attributes. Can yoy explain how do you use custom attributes?

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[skayser]

Thanks for the input. We use self-defined custom attributes like "Owner", "Division", "Valid until" to support a very basic asset/lifecycle management and reporting. Who owns this VM? How many VMs does division X have? Can this VM be deleted after X months? ...

Also, I just added an "Autostart" attribute where we configure which VMs should be started after a full environment shutdown (think power outage) along with their interdepencies (level-based, level 1, 2, 3, ...). A script (to be written) can then read this attribute from all VMs and properly start the full environment.

[mlubinski]

Ok, thanks for explanation. I can't help you with these custom attributes. VM starting sequence can be forced also by HA settings (there you can specify which VMs should be powered first with highest priority.

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