In a previous article (here), I wrote about some possible benefits of being able to boot ESX 3i over NFS or in a RAM disk. In that post, I very briefly touched on a way in which the functionality of VirtualCenter could be expanded. I will dive a bit deeper on that subject in this post.

VMware has already invested heavily in VirtualCenter for being the central point of management for their platform. Many of the advanced features of the platform currently require VirtualCenter in order to function (VMotion, DRS, HA, etc.).

I think the next logical step in the evolution of VirtualCenter is that of a centralized configuration repository. Some of the features I envision are:

• Centralized configurations
• Ability to easily apply configuration updates to all (or a subset of) ESX servers in an environment
• Ability to abstract an ESX ‘personality’ from a specific piece the hardware
• Provide ‘templating’ functionality to ease large scale ESX installations/configurations

And some of the benefits of these features:

• Decreased time for configuration of ESX (both initial config as well as config updates)
• Increased consistency of ESX configurations
• Increased abstraction and dynamic capability of ESX

I envision a scenario in which the only config needed for ESX, is to be pointed to the desired VirtualCenter server (and perhaps some IP config as well). ESX would then contact the VirtualCenter server and obtain the appropriate configuration based on a pre-configured template. ESX would perform the same query upon boot and possibly at scheduled intervals. Of course there would be some up front configuration of the templates, but not much after that.

I would be very surprised if VMware isn’t already working on adding this type of functionality to their platform (or at least entertaining the idea). I think this would be a great benefit to the majority of VMware’s customers. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for this to become a reality.

As always, all feedback is welcome.