vCenter Server Heartbeat workshop @ DutchVMUG
The last breakout session we attended the XTG vCenter Server Heartbeat workshop, a quick way to get familiar with a new VMware product.
The instructor first introduced us to the product and discussed some installation and configuration hints and tips.
After that we quickly started with preparing and cloning the vCenter Server and installing and configuring the vCenter Server Heartbeat product.
The workshop certainly was useful but in a different way you would probably expect.
After the workshop Anne Jan and I discussed our experiences with the product and we quickly agreed that VMware could have spent more time OEM-ing the former Neverfail product to give it a VMware-like interface instead of the 1980’s Windows 3.11 interface it has now. Besides that the configuration of the product has a very high tweaker-level. In our opinion this is a 0.9 version and in the 1.0 versionVMware should definitely address the interface and configuration look and feel.
Nevertheless VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat does what it is supposed to as we saw during the lab exercises where we did a clean failover and finally caused a BSOD which vCenter Server Heartbeat handled perfectly.
I wonder if customers are willing to pay so much money for a product which isn’t worthy the VMware name based on its ancient interface. I know I will be having a very hard time to convince customers to use this to achieve a very high vCenter protection level even when it’s clear that the use case is definitively there.
5 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I agree with your opinion here. During the preparation of the workshop and during some test runs I found the product has some rough edges. That’s no problem, but if you’re asking a fairly large sum of money for it (5.000+ dollars) it becomes a problem (we’re Dutch after all).
I do think the technology is interesting and it’s something which can be useful for a lot of larger environments. But I’d like to see a more mature product first.
I agree with your opinion here. During the preparation of the workshop and during some test runs I found the product has some rough edges. That’s no problem, but if you’re asking a fairly large sum of money for it (5.000+ dollars) it becomes a problem (we’re Dutch after all).
I do think the technology is interesting and it’s something which can be useful for a lot of larger environments. But I’d like to see a more mature product first.
We use the product more then 2 years now, it’s very robust and mature.
VMware only oem’s the vCenter plugin, because Neverfail still has their other products and plugins.
I never had any issues with the interface. It works pretty good.
The product is mainly for large enterprise networks, where they need high availability. It’s not for small or medium size VMware sites.
Before the product was oem’ed by VMware all the people at our department had to do the Neverfail course, so you really know the product inside out.
We use the product more then 2 years now, it’s very robust and mature.
VMware only oem’s the vCenter plugin, because Neverfail still has their other products and plugins.
I never had any issues with the interface. It works pretty good.
The product is mainly for large enterprise networks, where they need high availability. It’s not for small or medium size VMware sites.
Before the product was oem’ed by VMware all the people at our department had to do the Neverfail course, so you really know the product inside out.