What drives you nuts about VirtualCenter?

[Michelle_Laveri]

OK.

Firstly, I would like to say I like VMware products generally. The better than their competitors in the main, and in the main they work - and deliver what they promise.

I'm working on a presentation on what I how I would like VMware to improve the core "infrastructure" components

BUT... putting that aside there somethings about VirtualCenter that drive me nuts/mad. For example:

Alarms/Alerts are poor quality - 10 conditions only - No alerts for snapshot size

Bulk administration doesn’t exist - e.g Networking, Rescan for LUNs

Not all the Sysprep features are available in Guest Customization

Task/Events don’t really tell me what’s happening

Misreported information - such a free space on a VMFS volume

NT4 like AD Support - There's AGLP but not AGGDLP or AGDLP

Can people add to this post - what their gripes are. If you would like add a wish list of features that would be interesting too...

Regards

Mike

[Michelle_Laveri]

Matt,

Could you provide more detail behind your "affinity rules suck" complaint? Do you like what affinity rules do, but just don't like the UI? How & why do you use affinity rules?

thanks,

Ulana

DRS product mgr

Can I just say how impressed I am that various PMs have come along to engage in this thread - it really shows that VMware want to listen...

This wasn't originally my intention behind the threads - just being lazy and asking the forum help me build my presentation!!!

But if these threads lead to a open dialog between end-users and the product owners - that can only be for everyones good...

Regards

Mike

[bjmoore]

Here are a few that have been vaporware for the past few years:

1. An easy way to see all snapshotted VMs across a cluster or datacenter from the VI client. Monday morning, you can usually find me fixing a broken VCB backup by searching through a hundred VMs to find the one with the snapshot. Ability to backup with VCB on snapshotted VMs would be great too, but not a VI issue.

2. Disk size/utilization stats provided in the Virtual Machines tab.

3. Ability to add VMFS volumes on a per-cluster basis, instead of per-host.

4. Ability to set a "cluster profile," so new hosts you add to the cluster will get the standard LUNs, masking, vSwitch and network configurations.

5. Batch updgrade ability for VMWare Tools on multiple VMs.

6. Ability to upgrade existing installations of VMWare Tools without rebooting (that's probably not going to happen, I know)

7. Hooks to open SSH client or console directly from the VI client (right-click->Console session)

8. Ability to set expiration dates on test or Dev VMs.

9. Ability to manually clear alarms when they're obviously stuck. Better refreshes of reported alarms...especially VMs.

[Michelle_Laveri]

Can I just say a big thank you for all the feedback provided. Rest assured that VMware does read these forums - and I've lots of very postive responses from VMware which includes some product managers (PM). I can't guarantee that every comment made here will make it to my presentation in the US later this month - but the vast majority will.

Some of you who have done the recent roadmap will be pleased to know that many peoples concerns are being address in the future...

Regards

Mike

[vvarnell]

My 2 cents on this:

1) Unsorted/unsortable list if VM's in the UI - inconvenient (being nice) to find the VM you are looking for

2) Rules that can have only 2 VM's - I frequently have 3 and 4 VM's that need to be separated, so I must either give up that requirement or set up THREE OR MORE rules where one should be suifficient.

Neither should have made it past first release beta testing, in my opinion.

VwV

[astrolab]

I think you can sort VMs by name.

[SReuter]

I would like to see something what I would call "Host Group Affinity" for a VM.

We have an ESX-Cluster with two SANs. 5 ESX Hosts are on Site1 and 4 are on Site2.

All ESX Hosts have access to all LUNs on all SANs, so we are free to VMotion the VMs wherever we want.

Still we want HA considerations to keep in mind that the two Sites are seperated physically and I want my VM to run on a server within its home rack.

I consider "Home" the place where there is also the SAN with the vmdk files of the particular VM.

Only in the case that all servers in one site are not available or do not meet HA requirements anymore, only then it should be considered to run on Site2.

We discussed this some time ago here and I think the "Host Group Affinity" setting is a very good additional option that should find its way to VC.

So basically a prioritized list of ESX Hosts, where a VM can run. This list should be taken into account when powering up a machine, or when HA kicks in.

Or even better and more comprehensive: "group objects" that can hold multiple esx hosts. These objects can then be used for the VM Host-Group Affinity.

So, I would define ESX-Group1: "ESX4,ESX2,ESX3,ESX1,ESX5" (notice that I prioritize ESX4 (for whatever reason))

Then I would define ESX-Group2: "ESX6,ESX9,ESX8,ESX7"

In the VM Settings I would first set its Host-Group-Affinity to ESX-Group1 (highest priority) and also to ESX-Group2 (lower priority).

Get the Idea?

[Michelle_Laveri]

Yesterday it was my very good fortune to do a 2hr web-ex with VMware's Product Team. The subject the feedback I collected from this forum thread - and my powerpoint (first delivered at the North/South Carolina VMware User Summit) about "What VMware should do next". If you interested its a two-part videopodcast that I upload this week on RTFM

It was a bit scary - I assumed the PM's would want to take me through their roadmap - which wouldn't have been very interesting since I've signed the NDA and did it a couple of months ago. Instead they put little ole me in the driving seat, and told me to go for. Little bit daunted for a nano-second - I thought "heck, this an opportunity of a life time". So I more or less did another presentation of those same powerpoint slides.

So a number of very positive things came out the web-ex. Folks, VMware is listening, and what's more reacting to customer demand. Secondly, I did get a little bit of inside track some things coming through the pipeline. Of course, I'm bound by NDA - and I don't think the PM team don't want their thunder stolen months before VMworld in Las Vegas. All I can say is the next 18 months are going to be very, very interesting.

Oh! What a tease I am

Following on from this a couple of the PMs in the web-ex have emailed me today following through with some specific chats they would like to have about specific product features and issues.

So VMware is listening to you guys, and as you have seen we have had responses from the PMs directly. I can't imagine that happening in another software company - can you?

Regards

Mike

www.rtfm-ed.co.uk

[mcowger]

Yesterday it was my very good fortune to do a 2hr web-ex with VMware's Product Team. The subject the feedback I collected from this forum thread - and my powerpoint (first delivered at the North/South Carolina VMware User Summit) about "What VMware should do next". If you interested its a two-part videopodcast that I upload this week on RTFM

It was a bit scary - I assumed the PM's would want to take me through their roadmap - which wouldn't have been very interesting since I've signed the NDA and did it a couple of months ago. Instead they put little ole me in the driving seat, and told me to go for. Little bit daunted for a nano-second - I thought "heck, this an opportunity of a life time". So I more or less did another presentation of those same powerpoint slides.

So VMware is listening to you guys, and as you have seen we have had responses from the PMs directly. I can't imagine that happening in another software company - can you?

Regards

Mike

www.rtfm-ed.co.uk

Awesome stuff mike - thanks for making it happen.

As for it happening with other companies - well, yes, actually, we require all of our major vendors to listen to us like this, and we do the same for our customers all the time.

--Matt

[ejward]

It's kind of funny. I listened to your podcast on the drive home yesterday. I've got to agree with what you said "Sweat the small stuff". It's the little annoying things that would take seconds for somebody to fix, that would make VC so much more livable.

If they're listening, here's another one.

When deploying a VM from a template. When you select "Custimize using an existing customization specification". If that custimization spec is set to prompt for machine name and IP address, when you run it, the tab key doesn't work right. When you enter the "Computer Name" and hit TAB, it should take you to the "NIC1 IP Address field". It doesn't. It takes you to "Cancel". It might not be so bad if it took you to Next but, it really should take you to the next field shouldn't it? It might sound minor but, it's a real pain when you've got to grab the mouse to go to the correct field each time when you're setting up 50 VMs.

See the screen I'm referring to in the attached file.

[bjmoore]

Mike, thank you for following up on this thread with VMware's PMs. Also, really enjoyed the presentations you gave at the NC/SC VMUC.

...to the VMware PMs, this is another great example of why I've stuck up for VMware despite increasing pressure to go to XenServer (in an almost entirely all-Citrix environment, with promises of half the licensing cost). Keep paying attention to the users

[ejward]

And in answer to you question? "I can't imagine that happening in another software company - can you?" No, I can't. I've posted things on Microsoft forums and blogs and have never even gotten a response. I would almost feel comfortable canceling my support agreement and using the forums alone. 90% of my issues get resolved here. Vmware has a great community out there and I'm glad they're listening.