3.2 Understanding the VM Client Window

Review the following sections for an understanding of the VM Client window:

3.2.1 Multiple VM Operator Logins

Multiple VM operators can each be running an instance of the VM Client that is logged in to the same VM virtualization grid. In other words, multiple VM operators can simultaneously manage the VMs on a particular virtualization grid. When any VM operator performs an action against a VM Client object, all VM Clients that are opened to that virtualization grid are updated accordingly.

Because multiple VM operators can be performing actions independently of each other, the VM Client interface automatically updates the appropriate locations in its window, such as displaying a new VM in everyone’s VM Client when it is created by one VM operator.

Various functions in the VM Client have set polling intervals for displaying new information. These polling intervals determine how quickly one VM operator’s VM Client instance shows another VM operator’s actions. For example, starting a VM displays that action in the Progress View section in just a few seconds, while it might take up to 30 seconds to show the start action for the VM in the other VM operators’ Virtual Machines list.

For information on creating multiple login IDs for VM operators, see Section D.0, Adding User Logins for VM Operators.

3.2.2 Customizing the VM Client Sections

You can do several things to customize the sections in the VM Client. Any changes you make are remembered the next time you start the VM Client.

  • Tiling: Multiple editors can be open at the same time. Select the status bar of an editor and drag it to a different position in the VM Client window to create the tiling effect. This can provide quicker access when you revisit an editor. For example:

    Error Log Section Displayed in VM Client Window
  • Maximizing Views: You can maximize a details tab view by double-clicking the VM or host server’s name that is located just above the buttons. For example, click here:

    VM or Host Server Name Indicated for Double-Clicking

    to display:

    VM’s Details Tabs’ View Maximized

    To return to the previous unmaximzed view, double-click the VM or host server’s name again.

    You can also maximize or minimize the Progress View or Error Log sections by double-clicking in the white area next to the Error Log or Progress View section’s title:

    Error Log Section Maximized
  • Dragging: You can drag sections (such as Progress View or Error Log) out of the VM Client window to another position on your desktop. You can also drag sections to different locations within the VM Client window. For example, the following illustrates that the Error Log section has been dragged outside of the VM Client window:

    Error Log Section Detached from VM Client Window

    To move sections around, click in the white area and drag the section to its new location, either within the VM Client window, or outside of it:

    Title Area to Click for Dragging Indicated

    You can close a view that has been dragged outside of the main VM Client window by clicking the Close Window Icon in the upper-right corner of the window. To close a view that is contained within the VM Client window, click View > Close Progress View or click View > Close Error Log.

  • Returning to Defaults: To reset any changes that you have made to the positions of sections, click View > Reset Perspective, which returns everything to the default organization of the VM Client window.

  • Keystrokes and Mouse Clicks: The following functions are available in the VM Client:

    Function

    Action

    Minimize or maximize of a section in the VM Client window

    • Double-click the status bar

    • Press the Spacebar or Enter key

    • Press the Left-arrow or Right-arrow key

    Go to the next or previous node

    • Press the Left-arrow or Right-arrow key

    Go to the next or previous sibling node

    • Press the Tab or Shift+Tab keys

    Open further details on a clickable details item

    • Double-click a details item, such as a line in the Event Log tab that has the Information Icon icon, to view further details on the event entry.

NOTE:When you make a change to a field in the VM Client, then exit the field by pressing Enter or changing focus to another field or option, the change made to the field is automatically saved. This is different from the Development Client, where you must click File > Save to retain changes to fields.

3.2.3 Navigating the VM Client Window

Review the following to understand the two main VM Client views:

For information on the Progress View and Error Log sections, see Section 3.4, Using the Progress View and Section 3.3, Using the Error Log.

Inventory Lists

When you first log in to the VM Client, the following view is displayed:

Figure 3-5 The VM Client Inventory Panel - Initial View

The Inventory panel on the left contains four links in its navigation area:

  • Virtual Machines

  • Host Servers

  • Storage

  • Templates

Each of these four links lists the available items, such as known VMs, known host servers, known repositories, and any templates that you have created from the VMs. By default, the Virtual Machines list is initially displayed when you log in.

When you double-click an item in a list, its details tabs are displayed (see Inventory Details), usually with the Summary tab selected. However, if you click an item that has one of the following states, its Event Log tab is selected instead:

The following describes the various features of the VM Client window:

  • Inventory item’s title area: This area provides information for what is being viewed, including an icon to indicate which type of resource is being viewed, and square brackets to indicate any action or viewing condition that is in effect. For example, the following indicates where the Inventory item’s title area is located:

    VM Client Windows with Title Area Circled in Red

    In this case, the VM Icon icon indicates that evd1 is a VM name, and [Down] indicates its current status. Other icons that can appear in this title area:

    Host Server Icon

    Host server

    Repository Icon

    Repository

    Template Icon

    Template

    If a list is being filtered, [Filtered] is displayed.

  • Groups: Each of the four Inventory panel items can have groups listed under them:

    Inventory panel showing two groups under the Host Servers heading.

    The Closed List Itcon icon indicates that one or more groups exist. Click the icon to display the groups. For more information on using groups, see Section 9.0, Managing with Groups.

    When you first log in to the VM Client, the Virtual Machines or Host Servers sections are automatically expanded to display a Discovered group if there are newly discovered VMs or host servers that you have not yet accepted into the virtualization grid. Click the group to show the candidates in the right panel. For information on managing them, see Section 2.3, Registering VM Hosts.

  • Available Options: For each of the Inventory sections, items listed in the right panel have various main menu options, right-click menu options, and function buttons displayed, not displayed, enabled, or disabled according to the item’s status.

    VM Client Window showing three methods for accessing options: 1) main menu options, 2) buttons, and 3) right-click context-sensitive menu options.
  • Column Sorting: You can sort the various columns of information alphanumerically. Simply click a column heading to sort it in ascending or descending order. The Sorting Descending (Down Arrow) Icon or Sorting Ascending (Up Arrow) Icon arrows indicate which column was last sorted and whether it was sorted in ascending or descending order. For more information, see Sorting Lists.

  • Logging In/Out: Mouse over the Orchestrate icon to display which host server you are logged in to:

    Mouse-Over Text for the Orchestrate Icon

    Double-click the icon to log out of that host server and the VM Client:

    Logout Dialog Box

    This option is always available.

  • Version Information: To access the Version Compatibility dialog box, double-click the Version Info icon:

    Version Info Icon and Text

    This is the same dialog box that clicking Help > Version Information accesses:

    Version Compatibility Information Dialog Box

    This option is also available for the Inventory details views.

Inventory Details

In each of the four Inventory sections you can display detailed information by either double-clicking an item or right-clicking it and selecting Show Details. For example, double-clicking a VM displays its details tabs:

Figure 3-6 Virtual Machines Details Tabs

In the Figure 3-6 example, the VMs that were listed to the right of the Inventory panel are now listed on the left within the panel. The details tabs that are displayed are for the VM that is selected in the Inventory panel list. This allows you to navigate the details tabs per VM more quickly.

This same functionality exists for the other three Inventory items.

You can easily navigate between the different Inventory types’ details tabs. For example:

  • While viewing the details of a VM, you can double-click a host server or repository name that is listed in the first section on the VM’s Summary tab to display the details tabs for the host or repository instead of the VM’s tabs. The Inventory panel on the left remains unchanged. This allows you to return to the VM’s details tabs by simply clicking the VM name in the Inventory panel list.

  • Conversely, you can view the details of a host server or a repository, then double-click a VM’s name in the details to display the VM’s details tabs. You can return to the host or repository by simply clicking its name in the Inventory panel list.

You can navigate through the details for each Inventory item by using the tabs, such as those illustrated in Figure 3-6. Each Inventory type has the Summary and Event Log tabs plus other tabs particular to its own details.

Tab viewing is sticky, meaning the last tab that you viewed for an item is displayed again when you return to that item.

The Event Log tab provides access to details on the status of any jobs that have been run or are running, no matter which VM operator initiated the action. You can open multiple views for logging information. Figure 3-7 and Figure 3-8 provide some examples:

Figure 3-7 Event Log Tab with Event Log Dialog Box and Mouse-Over Display of Detailed Information

Figure 3-8 Event Log Tab with Event Log and Event Log Details Dialog Boxes

For more information, see Using Feedback to Manage VMs.

For information on using and editing information in each of the details tabs, see the applicable sections in:

3.2.4 Sorting, Searching, and Filtering Lists

You can manage information in the VM Client by using lists in the following ways:

Sorting Lists

Any list in the VM Client can be sorted alphanumerically in an ascending or descending order by clicking the column heading. You can sort rows of information by any column. Most lists default to sorting alphabetically on the first column. For example:

Figure 3-9 VMs Sorted by Name

VMs, host servers, repositories, and templates are sorted alphanumerically by default. If there are multiple VM operators and one of them adds new objects to a list, the items are correctly sorted according to each VM operator’s preference.

For all lists, the most recently sorted column displays its current sort order with an arrow (Sort Ascending (Up Arrow) Icon or Sort Descending (Down Arrow) Icon). This is per instance of the VM Client; VM operators do not see each others’ sorting changes.

Sorting in the VM Client provides benefits such as the following:

  • Technology groups: Sorting is available wherever lists exist in the VM Client. You can sort any listed information by various technology groups.

  • Virtual Machines’ Status column: Sorting allows you to group the VMs by their status type icons in the following order:

    Status Column Screen Shot Showing the Sorting Order of Status Icons
  • Virtual Machines’ Host column: Sorting is a quick way to determine which VMs are running or in a progress state. It also quickly indicates which servers are hosting VMs.

  • Host Servers’ Active VMs column: Sorting is a quick way to determine the most and least active host servers.

  • Host Servers’ CPU or Memory columns: Sorting is a quick way to determine your host servers’ utilization if the Orchestrate Agent and Monitoring Agent are installed and running on them.

  • Storage’s Stored VMs, Type, Capacity, and Free columns: Sorting might help you in selecting repositories for new VMs, viewing how many repositories you have by type, and determining which repositories are most or least utilized.

  • Templates’ # Clones column: Sorting can show which templates have clones when you have more templates than can be listed in the window.

  • Templates’ Location column: Sorting can show the location that most templates are using.

  • Templates’ OS column: Sorting helps you to find templates by their defined operating system.

  • Templates’ Technology column: Sorting shows which technologies are used most by the templates.

  • Templates’ CPUs and Memory columns: Sorting orders templates by their capacities.

  • Event Log’s Action column: Sorting allows you to group actions so that you can more quickly find a particular action in a long list of actions.

  • Event Log’s Status column: Sorting allows you to more quickly locate a particular status in a long list of statuses.

  • Event Log’s User column: Sorting allows you to view log entries by the user who initiated the actions.

  • Event Log’s Start Time column: Sorting allows you to view the list from either the latest or earliest log posts.

  • Event Log’s Elapsed Time column: Sorting makes it easier to locate time-consuming events.

  • Progress View section’s Action column: Sorting allows you to group actions so that you can find a particular action.

  • Progress View section’s Status column: Sorting allows you to group statuses so that you can quickly discover problem statuses.

  • Progress View section’s User column: Sorting makes it easier to discover how many actions are being initiated by each user.

  • Progress View section’s Elapsed Time column: Sorting helps you to discover actions that might be taking too long.

  • Progress View section’s % Complete column: Sorting shows which actions have longer to complete.

Filtering Lists

You can shorten any list by filtering on its items. This function is best used when you have a very long list and some of the items contain the same characters. This way, you can display only the few items that you want to focus on. For example, you might have a list of VMs similar to the following:

Figure 3-10 VM Client Showing the Filter Field

The field circled in the above example is the filter field. This is where you type characters to create the filter. The filter string is not case-sensitive.

You must place the mouse pointer’s focus in the filter field in order to use this feature. If you start typing characters when the mouse pointer’s focus is on a listed item, the locator pop-up is displayed instead.

For example, to display just the VMs containing the letters sles in one or more of the columns, type the characters in the field as depicted in Figure 3-11:

Figure 3-11 Using the Filter Field in the VM Client

The list is automatically updated to reflect all VMs that have characters in any of their rows that match what you are typing.

If the list is long, it might take a few seconds to display the filtered hits. You don’t need to click somewhere else or press the Enter key to make the listed items change. You can continue to type characters to refine the filter with each character you type in the filter field. If you press Enter, the typed filter is executed, but the mouse pointer’s focus remains within the field.

If you enter a string that has no match, the list is empty. To display the full list again, click the Close Filter Icon icon to clear the filter string, or manually delete the filter string. Because the filter string is dynamically read, you can delete recently typed characters to display previous hits.

For any list in the VM Client, the filter strings that you enter are remembered when you return to those lists. This allows you to set up filter strings for various lists so that you do not need to refilter the lists each time you return to them, even if you log out and log back in to the VM Client.

To show you whether a list is filtered, [Filtered] is displayed above the action buttons, as shown in Figure 3-11.

When you double-click a VM that is in a filtered list, the details tabs for the VM are displayed and the filtered VMs list is now displayed in the Inventory panel.

Locating Items in a List

You can use the locator pop-up to move quickly to a specific item, or to identify all relative items in a list of VMs, host servers, storage items, or templates, or in any other kind of list in the VM Client. Hits are based on any of the entries in any column. The hits are based on exact matches to the string that you type. The strings are not case-sensitive.

To use this feature, click anywhere in a list, then begin typing characters. The locator pop-up is automatically displayed, showing the characters that you are typing:

Figure 3-12 Locator Pop-Up with String Field, Arrows, and Number Hits

Focus is immediately moved to the first item in the list that matches what you have typed. (If this doesn’t happen immediately, click the down-arrow on the locator pop-up.) You can continue to type characters in the locator pop-up to refine the filter:

Figure 3-13 Virtual Machines List with a Located Item Highlighted

If there are no matches for your string, nothing is highlighted; or, if there are no further matches, the last hit remains highlighted.

The up-arrow and down-arrow in the locator pop-up allow you to move from hit to hit in the list. The arrow keys on the keyboard also perform this action when the locator pop-up is visible. This arrow action is very useful in long lists where the hits might not all occur together. For example, typing start might find hits that are scattered across an Event Log. The arrows can help you to quickly locate them.

The locator pop-up dynamically displays how many of the items in the list match the characters that you have typed thus far. This lets you know how many hits you can move to by using arrows.

The locator pop-up closes after a brief pause if no further action is taken. To close the locator immediately, click outside of it, or press the Enter key.

When you close the locator pop-up, its content is cleared and is not remembered.

3.2.5 Viewing Additional Information in Fields or Cells

To view more information for any entry in a field or an entry in a table cell, simply mouse over the field or cell. For example:

Figure 3-14 Mousing Over a Cell

This example shows that 12 VMs are stored in this repository.

Following are examples of the kind of useful information that you can view by mousing over fields or entries in table cells:

  • General viewing functionality:

    • Notes column: Displays the full text of the note.

    • Status column on the Event Log tab: For any entry with the Information Icon icon, displays the same information that you can view by double-clicking the entry to open the Event Log dialog box. This is just a quicker way to view that information. However, the dialog box remains open, but the mouse-over information disappears when you change the mouse’s focus.

  • Progress View section:

    • Status column: Displays the same status log information that is in the Event Log dialog box (right-click the entry in the Status column and select Show Log).

  • Virtual Machines view:

    • Name column: Displays the VM’s name, its host, and its repository.

    • Status column: Displays the VM’s status. For the in-progress status (In-Progress Icon), it shows the action name, action detail, start time, elapsed time, a progress bar, and the latest three log entries (which are updated dynamically).

    • Host column: Displays the VM’s host’s DNS name or IP address, the type of hypervisor being used, and the repository.

  • Host Servers view:

    • Name column: Displays either the host server’s DNS name or IP address.

    • Active VMs column: Displays the names of the VMs that are actively using the host. Nothing is displayed if the count is zero.

    • Virtualization Technology column: Displays the virtualization type and its source.

    • Stored VMs column on the Summary tab: Displays the names of the VMs that are assigned to the repository, even if they are not running. Nothing is displayed if the count is zero.

    • Status column on the Summary tab: Displays the VM’s status. For the in-progress status (In-Progress Icon), it shows the action name, action detail, start time, elapsed time, a progress bar, and the latest three log entries (which are updated dynamically).

  • Storage view:

    • Stored VMs column: Displays the names of the VMs that are assigned to the repository, even if they are not running. Nothing is displayed if the count is zero.

    • Status column on the Virtual Machines tab: Displays the VM’s status. For the in-progress status (In-Progress Icon), it shows the action name, action detail, start time, elapsed time, a progress bar, and the latest three log entries (which are updated dynamically).

    • Active VMs column on Hosts tab: Displays the names of the VMs that are actively using the host. Nothing is displayed if the count is zero.

    • Virtualization Technology column on Hosts tab: Displays the virtualization type and its source.

  • Templates view:

    • # Clones column: Displays the names of the VMs that were cloned from the template. Nothing is displayed if the count is zero.

    • Hypervisor: Displays the hypervisor type and its source.

    • Name column on the Summary tab: Displays the cloned VM’s name, its host, and its repository.

    • Status column on the Summary tab: Displays the cloned VM’s status. For the in-progress status (In-Progress Icon), it shows the action name, action detail, start time, elapsed time, a progress bar, and the latest three log entries (which are updated dynamically).

    • Host column on the Summary tab: Displays the cloned VM’s host’s DNS name or IP address, the type of hypervisor being used, and the repository.