One the more pleasing aspects of vSphere 6.7 is the extension of the HTML5 client to cover more functionality. 95% feature parity with the Ye Old Flash Web-Client of teeth-extraction fame. Make no bones about it the HTML5 client above is the bees-knees – mainly because in comparison to its slow-coach predecessor it is blisteringly quick. Indeed, switching back to the previous version of the client that replaced the previous version of the client, that worked prefect fine – is an unpleasant reminder of how dreadful it was… However, there is something jivey about the way this simultaneous release of 3 different clients at one stage happened. This isn’t “Agile” devlopment its “Fragile” development at its worst – and sends a confused jagged and jarring message to customers. I would have preferred to have waited until 7.0 and full-release of a brand-new shinny clients. Rather than the HTML5 client being dribbled out in dribs and drabs.
I doubt very much if any customer purchases a product on the strength of the client front-end. I mean if they did with VMware they’d get a lot of bang for the buck when 3 of them were available. 😉 After all most customers are either automating much of the tasks it offers with PowersHell, or with some other overlay that abstracts away the complexity of full fat Web-Client.
With that said there is a tier of customers for whom vSphere is just 10-20% of their daily admin tasks (if that) and for whom an intuitive and easy to use interface is a must. Because unlike hard-core VMware-Fanatics like myself, they only log into it if the have need too. There’s some aspects of the new HTML5 client that irritate and some aspects that are broken.
I’ve yet to see either the Flash Web-Client or the HTML5 Web-Client successfully handle OVF/OVA exports and imports – with me having to resort to the use of OVFTOOL to get a process that is reliable and dependable.