Soooo...VMWare has decided to scrap the "thick destkop client" and go to a web-based front end. 5.1 is apparently the last version that will "support" the desktop client and even now, the new features for 5.1, such as hardware version 9, are only available thru the web interface...so its required now.
I'm always fearful when a company tries to force a web frontend, but sometimes (often times?) they turn out ok. Many firewalls are web (personal favorite Astaro/Sophos has a very good web frontend), many NAS boxes are web, even enterprise storage like Nexenta is web, but VMWare Infrastructure (classic name) is a pretty complex product doing alot of things, so I hope they do it right and make it perform and not cumbersome to use. The desktop client was pretty durn good....
Also, a little birdie told me that this and the VCSA (Virtual Center Server Appliance) are coming from a desire at VMWare to be non-dependant on Microsoft to run their product (I'm cleaning up the language a bit on their behalf). Now of course I can't fault them and appreciate simplicity, but it still needs to be usable. Oracle as a backend (for more than 5 hosts) is certainly not what I would call "common" even in medium size companies so is that really the best choice? Plus as far as companies go, can anyone really argue that Oracle is somehow "better" than Microsoft?
I'm predicting the future of vCenter will ONLY be the VCSA (I guess they'll have to incorporate VUM somehow), but don't see Oracle-as-the-only choice being viable.
Good luck VMWare and I hope it turns out well.
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