Good Afternoon,

First of all I want to thank you all for the detailed replies - I really appreciate it.

 

I feel that I would much prefer to take the more difficult path and contribute code to the project rather than build something from scratch. After reviewing the responses with my tutor we feel that the functional additions that we require are generic enough and would likely be useful for other users. The existing userportal is close enough to what we need and has the benefit of being used and tested. As well as helping avoid the maintenance issues mentioned.  

 

Below I'll provide a breakdown of the functionality we need, justification for why we need it, and a proposed solution.  

 

1) The ability to quickly create a new VM from a template, whilst hiding some of the complexity from the user.

 

The current flow for creating a VM from template is to hit the extended tab, click create new VM, select the template and then fill in the name. I want to give the user a context menu when right clicking the desired template to 'quick launch', which will programmatically follow this process using the default options and fill in the Name field based on a format specified in a configuration file or options menu. By default I think something like "Username TemplateName Index", where index refers to the number of VMs created from that template by a specific user, would work well. e.g. "TShaw Fedora22 01".

 

Benefits: Saves time, hides the complexity of some of the virtualisation concepts which end-users (particularly students) may find disconcerting, provides uniformity in VM names for all students.

 

2) The ability to provide some of the more advanced features whilst hiding some of the complexities of the Extended view

 

The extended pane of the user portal provides the user with a lot of information, this is great for enterprise purposes but, again, may be a little distracting for students.

 

Proposed Solution A: Create a third tab, something like a 'Quick start / Launcher' page, which sits between the basic and extended views displaying a list of the user's current VMs and a list of available templates (which following the completion of issue 1 will be easily creatable). 

 

Proposed Solution B: Similar to the above but rather than introduce a third tab, the list of templates would be displayed on the right hand side of the basic page. Either tabbed with the currently selected VM info pane or as another            column.

 

Proposed Solution C: Add settings that will allow the user to enable/disable GUI elements in the userportal as required.

 

Benefits: Too much distracting information for students. Lessens the amount of input it takes a user to clone a template. Enables the user to create VMs based on templates from one page with a simple right click option and then launch.

 

3) Ability to specify sets of VM templates which can be created as new VMs together

 

Proposed Solution: Introduce the concept of sets of templates. This will provide a tutor the ability to group templates together (through the admin portal).

New submenu @ admin panel which sits below Templates called Sets, can create a new group, gives list of templates with checkbox. Requires set name + list of templates in the group.

 

Benefits: Will enable the user to create a full set of templates as a context menu option. This will again utilise the feature added in issue 1 and default all of the VM names in the creation process. Enables tutors to set up all VMs required for a particular teaching scenario and have the student clone them all without having to find all individual templates, this is especially useful in teaching security as a lot of core topics require a networked environment of multiple different VMs running different OS’s.

 

 

The university have some additional feature suggestions which will be proposed at a later date (regarding snapshot management by users).

 

I'm confident that I have the ability and support around me to implement these features to a high enough standard to be accepted. Features 1 and 2 are of the highest priority right now and will be what I focus my efforts on until they are completed to a high standard.

 

If anything above is unclear please let me know and I will expand upon it. All feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

Kind regards,

Thomas Shaw