VMware Host Client Beta // Bringing back the desktop app

In a recent VMware community blog post a new VMware Host Client Beta was announced. However one of the standout pieces of information in the blog was the new beta client is a "desktop application"! Are we going back to the days of the old vSphere Client written in C#? We take a quick look at this news and what it may mean.

Introduction - 0:00
Covering the community post on the new beta client - 1:00
Downsides of the current host client - 1:53
Talking about the current features of the beta version - 2:22
Is this a step forward? 3:20
This is the future direction - 3:56
The new client is an Electron-based application - 4:30
Convenience of the web client currently in VMware ESXi - 4:56
A pain when you need tools for management - 5:30
Let me know your thoughts on the new VMware Host client beta - 5:52

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[druxpack]

i'm assuming for security, not having to run the web client locally on the host. With that said i loved the 5.5/6 thick client from back in the day. Bring it back baby! i always had it up and running and ready to do whatever.

[cpuuk]

It's not what they mention, it's what they don't mention. A web browser can't be controlled, but an App that needs to check in with Big Brother licensing on a regular basis can- rolling subscription control that can even block older ESXi versions running (hence the version independence angle).

[ThBeowulf]

My first thought when I saw the title was "Oh gosh, another chunk of VMWare is gone".

I'm glad I listened to the whole video though because what an Electron App direction says to me is that there might be feature parity between App and Web as well as having a consistent client for mobile devices. Electron is probably a "rapid prototype" experiement though as many serious apps outgrow Electron pretty quickly. (e.g. MS Teams)

I hope a web portal of some sort remains however for exactly the reasons you point out: Access to the tooling in a pinch.

[johnselph]

Honestly, the web client never became as fast or efficient as the desktop app. Web apps have their place but they aren't the solution for every problem.

[GeekOfAllTrades]

This definitely feels like a step backwards, but par for the course in this new Broadcom world ...I guess
Great vid, as usual!

[ivanmaglica]

As an author of Electron apps myself, it's a step in a right direction. You are not duplicating the UI and API efforts, it's basically just repackaging and disabling of UI capabilities of their full web UI.

[johnsteskal]

This is welcome news. More companies need to do this

[tomphillips]

I like it. I always preferred the client software to the web based but not at the cost of losing the built in web client. Both would be better for the reasons you described.

[jeffnew]

*SLAPS KNEE* Whoa, good one, Brandon. But surely you know that April Fool's was LAST WEEK.

Seriously, I'd entertain the return of a desktop client for ESXi/vCenter. The old C#/Windows/Fat Client was one of the best designed pieces of software I've ever used. It was perfect for its job, full featured and responsive. It was closely tied to a particular patch- or point-level of ESXi or vCenter, but it was easy to download directly from the host and installed quickly, when required, and multiple versions coexisted without issue.

I hope the HTML client survives as a kind of Management User Interface (MUI), ALA ESX 2.x.

Approaching this with an very open mind.

Say, since the free-license version of ESXi is dead, for now, does that mean that every licensed SKEW of ESXi includes some form of vCenter Server?

[bloodniece]

As long as the host client app is portable and a single binary, then that would be ideal.

[petko]

Thanks Brandon, amazing video as always, do you know what the future will be for VMware Workstation Pro / Fusion? Have you heard anything about those products?

[accrevoke]

Really depends on how "the new" client is designed. If it's just a web / java app in-disguised, it's going to be garbage.
Remember how the web client was originally implemented? Via flash and buggy for years until they finally made a switch to HTML5, and still took them years to be somewhat feature complete? No matter which route vmware goes, it's likely going to be buggy for years.
If the "new client" is a true successor to the old C# client, with properly implemented feature set + plugin manager, then it's something looking forward to... in a few years.

[Andrew-ofof]

Sounds like a way to enforce licensing better

[tahasever]

It doesn't matter if it is web app or desktop app, if it works as it should be. it would be better to have it portable app format to run any supported system effortlessly. and please no dependency on Java etc Broadcom. Please.

[DanielTechTips]

Desktop App might be good for security reasons but don't discard the WebUI part at server side

[nottad]

By the looks of it they have a long, long way to go. This is only for hosts and not vCenter at this point.

[RyN-ff]

Wake me up when VMware supports Wayland on linux

[Lacquerhead-TX]

The C# desktop client was hot garbage. There's a reason why anyone doing anything serious with vSphere going back to at least vSphere 3.5 was using PowerCLI.

[Puligubbe]

Probably they are only tired of supporting different web browsers with all their quirks…

[AlexCernat]

I REALLY hated that piece of junk called vsphere client; half a gig (and that's maybe 10-15 years ago, when disk space was kind of limited), quirks everywhere and so on ... web client was simple to "install" and use, but now, let's go again in the dark ages ... or maybe not, an electron app is somewhere like a web app, but not on the web :-P