[Users] What do you want to see in oVirt next?

[Rick Beldin]

On Tue 08 Jan 2013 04:41:01 AM EST, Itamar Heim wrote:
> On 01/07/2013 06:11 PM, Rick Beldin wrote:
>> - cleaner work-flow in creating and associating storage, especially NFS
>>

Some of this is no doubt my newbie-ness to ovirt.  Most of my comments 
below
have to do with the manager.

I started playing with RHEV 3.1 since I am responsible for delivering 
support on it but just yesterday started playing with Fedora 17 and 
all-in-one for ease of setup.  I will try and document the specifics, 
but the things I recall were things like:

- inability to setup NFS storage on the cluster until I had added a 
host.  I think
  I missed some key concept here, but my feeling was that I 
would/could/should
  setup the manager (engine) first and then add virtual hosts.  
Instead, there
  seems to be a procedural step.

- along those lines the UI could do more to guide a user, a first-time 
wizard
  that would guide you through cluster and datacenter setups that are 
independent
  of the hosts.  Guide Me is a good start, but perhaps it needs some 
expansion.

>> - better error reporting from engine back to admin user during admin
>> operations.
>

- here's an example.  Just installed AIO on Fedora 17.  After going 
through
  everything, it says 'Install Failed'.   The Event entry has a 
correlation id,
  which can be used to figure out what went wrong.  (I guess).  It 
seems like
  there could be more information provided to the admin on what to do 
next aside
  install again?  Tooltip on what to do with correlation id?   Oddly,  
I can't
  right click on Event text to bring up copy/paste menu with Chrome or 
FF. Ctrl-c
  worked with Chrome but not FF:

Host local_host installation failed. The required action is taking 
longer than allowed by configuration. Verify host networking and 
storage settings..

  That gives you a clue, but then what? A handy pointer to the log file 
would
  be good.

- Eons ago, in another product space, a complex product with hooks into 
networking
  and whatnot had a tiny diagnostic script that would attempt to 
emulate the
  requirements of the product.  Perhaps that is needed here - something 
outside
  of the framework that could be a checklist of ports not open, 
permissions, etc.
  Things that an admin needs to address outside of engine.

- A menu item that would call the sosreport-like thing to collect data 
would aid
  in supportability.

- A meta-page with pointers/contents to all logs, databases and so 
forth would
  be helpful.  There is a lot of content scattered over the disk.

- A meta-page with a listing of critical processes.

Some of these things are doubtless outside the scope of abstraction 
that is
currently there, but the manager is the connection between the admin 
and the
hosts.  As a critical resource the admin will likely not only be the one
administering to guests, but to the engine as well.   Making that 
person's
life easier will aid in acceptance and reduce long-term support costs.

My 2cents...

Rick