Well, as I mentioned in another post, I've finished a vSphere 5.5 deployment. Just thought I'd jot down a few observations. Disclaimer: these are based on my own opinion and do not represent the views of any Company I've worked for past, present or future.
I found the new web interface a little daunting at first, I tried to do everything possible with the it rather than drop back to the C# client.So in no particular order:
The refresh rate is a little slow which is annoying, when you power off a VM it doesn't instantly update and I find myself forcing a refresh several times a day.
Drag and drop works nicely but you have to wait until it's finished as it removes the object temporarily and then puts it back which can screw up your next selection!
Great working with the new SSO, no Database required, didn't give any trouble at all.
Tried using the VCSA but it gave a LOT of trouble so after two rebuilds I called time and reverted to the Windows version. It's just not ready for the big time outside of Labs / Test / Development, again, my opinion only. The web client was more unstable with the VCSA than with the windows one.
The Notes field doesn't show custom attribute data so it's either input what the VM does or have Veeam input the latest backup job information. Tags don't cut it for dynamic data like that. You can use Custom Attributes but the web client won't display them. You can get a community written plugin that does however.
Use the latest vCenter build you can get provided your plugins work with it. There's many, many bugfixes in the newer versions, especially over the last year and multiple vCenter releases. Bit concerning but at least they are trying to address it. One outstanding issue is you can't deploy OVFs with the web client, you have to drop back to the C# Client.
Tip: Deploy vCenter and SQL VMs with Hardware version 9 and keep a standard switch handy with no physical uplinks to allow you to restore vCenter back onto the network where you are using Distributed switches exclusively. Remember the C# Client can't edit VMs with a hardware version of 10, hope your PowerCLI skills are good in that case when vCenter is down and you've to restore from backup!
The console plugin doesn't launch great in Firefox, it stalls the browser completely for about 10 seconds. When doing testing using multiple VMs, drop back to the C# Client, console is a little better there. Or try a different browser?!
All the third party plugins are pretty Cool, I've used HP Insight Control v 7.3 (it Rocks! Especially for Storage visibility), Veeam is good also - last 7 days of backup history on tap.
Sometimes you right click on a VM and the options you expect to be available aren't. Try the Action menu at the top instead. Annoying especially when it's due to a refresh lag.
Filtering Advanced ESXi Host settings is very handy, looking for words like "Scratch", "BPDU" or "PDL" makes it very easy to configure or check settings.
Not using Tags to date but found Datastore Clusters interesting. When they overlap with Storage features however they are less useful.
Still not getting LLDP exposed through HP Virtual Connect but one day.....
Don't forget to backup your DVS configuration! Handy feature but could be placed better or allow automation?
