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Design Evolution of VMware vSphere

From Concept to Product Ken Guzik, vSphere Design Lead

+Evolution of Design

Creation of VMware vSphere

VMware started with a vision to create a hands-off data center using virtualization

Users were conservative and risk averse IT administrators

To our users, virtualization was complex, mysterious and scary

Simply providing great technology wouldn’t cut it The product had to “feel” simple and non-

threatening

+Evolution of Design

How could VMware bring virtualization to the enterprise?

Focus on the user experience as a primary goal Make the user experience simple, familiar and

approachable Remove the “mystique” of virtualization

Make the most complex operations ridiculously simple Instill a culture of great UE across the company Hire a dedicated UX design lead (Ken)

+Initial Concepts

Single Pane of Glass

As Familiar and Comfortable UI as Possible

(Windows Explorer)

Well KnownUI Models

VMware VirtualCenter Concept Model

+Initial Concepts

Alternate VirtualCenter Concept Model

Separate Navigation From Views

Less Familiar to Windows Users

Well KnownUI Models

Multiple Windows for Increased Visibility

Rejected

+1.0 Design

Very limited functionality

VM management and Host/VM monitoring only

Simple wizard based VM deploy

Drag and drop VMMigration

Not much else

+2.0 Design

Full datacenter automation

High availability

Host load balancing (DRS)

Fault tolerance

Scale out to 1000s of VMs

Full host, VM, network and storage configuration

+3.0 Design

Continuing to build out functionality

Policy based automation

High level intelligent monitoring

Scale out to 100Ks of VMs

Integration with other mgmt UIs

+What happened to the small user?

As the product scaled out, care was taken to ensure things worked on a small scale

But…

Complexity creeps in, and the usability for the small datacenter suffers

Time to rethink the small users’ needs

Better understanding of use cases lets us consider a different product that addresses their needs

+Downsize & Simplify

Conceptual single host UI model

Supports only the most valuable use cases

Fully automated with minimal user interaction

Focus on small business needs

+Focus on Tasks

Cloud based management of local datacenter

Primarily task and wizard based UI

Integrated with community for automated recommendations

Designed for the small business use cases

Go.vmware.com

+More on VMware vSphere

Ken Guzik’s portfolio page http://kenguzik.net/portfolio/vmware/vsphere

Case study of the evolution from vSphere 1.0 to 2.0 User-Centered Design Stories, Real-World UCD Case Studies

Case 12 – User Centered Design for Middleware Publisher: http://www.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn

=9780123706089 Chapter: http://tinyurl.com/bghzy7l

VMware vSphere product page http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/overview.html

Video tour of vSphere 4.0 http://searchvmware.techtarget.com/video/A-tour-of-VMware-vSphere-4

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