Tech Support, Streamlined: VMware vCenter Support Assistant 5.1

VMware recently released a new virtual appliance for vCenter Server. VMware vCenter Support Assistant 5.1, which centralizes and streamlines the creation of technical support tickets, is a free download that once registered with vCenter Server gives you access from within the vSphere client or vSphere Web Client to open and manage technical support tickets, generate and upload logs, and even scrub any potentially sensitive information out of these logs automatically. It's a pretty nifty tool for administrators, if you ask me. I despise opening tickets and uploading logs, and so this appliance makes it easy, convenient and accessible.

The VMware vCenter Support Assistant 5.1 supports the following vCenter Server versions:

• vCenter Server 4.1
• vCenter Server 5.0 Windows and Virtual Appliance
• vCenter Server 5.1 Windows and Virtual Appliance

From a hypervisors perspective, it runs on vSphere ESXi 4.1 and newer. While vCenter Server itself does not require Internet access, the Support Appliance and the vSphere Client you are using require Internet connection for obvious reasons to function properly.

Now, I have not been able to test this yet, but I am very curious if any of you have. Can you, for instance, access this appliance and open tickets, upload logs, etc., from an iPad? In a world dubbed by VMware itself going more and more towards mobile applications, it'd be an ideal application were it available on a mobile device. It is very convenient for me to use my iPad to open, manage or upload logs, especially if it is after hours, or on weekends where I am not in the office, maybe not even at home. Come to think of it, My VMware app on the iPhone could also be a good place for this but would need infrastructure access, I guess.

If anyone has tried this with a mobile device, please share your experience in the comments section on things like user experience, has the application been configured to be mobile friendly, and so on? Do I need to scroll and zoom, etc.? If you've used it, the floor is yours.

Posted by Elias Khnaser on 01/30/2013 at 2:58 PM