I see so many tools, now, described in various ways as "managing virtualization". But I have yet to see anything that inspired me to use it.

Just what is the end goal in "virtualization management", anyway? Is this about configuring the virtualized hardware as a software method corresponding to configuring hardware (where one might change adapter cards, upgrade RAM, add hard drives, insert storage media, etc)?

The uses I make of virtualization is more for "one time" uses, such as "will distro X version Y run software Z", especially where I need to answer this for a variety of X and Y. A similar use is to test software I develop on other platforms to be sure I haven't added any non-portable dependencies. But these cases don't really need "management" aside from maybe things like automating VM based test sequences.

I would like to see a tool for virtual machines that would emulate user interaction ... e.g. like an expect script but for a virtual machine.

I am missing the issue here.

Can you re-phrase it a bit?

I am missing the issue with all these virtualization management tools. Why do we need them? I presume someone does or the developers wouldn't have gotten it into their heads to do it. But do I? I don't know. I don't feel anything is missing in my life with regard to virtualization management. But maybe my idea of it is all different than someone else's. Looking around at the web sites, it sounds more like a sell job than anything useful. I'm just wondering if it is yet another case of the segment of users that wants to have everything done my pushing buttons on eye candy.

FYI, yes, I use CLI. I also use GUI. But I don't need to replace CLI with GUI.

I am guessing that developers are trying to target a business model or models. They may be trying to also support other pay per apps or services.


In all the apps out there I doubt anyone would ever use more than 1% or so. The rest unknown or unwanted.

So basically, I should just not waste my time even thinking of the possibility of considering them to have any use to me (someone who uses command line).

I am not sure I'd play with it unless I had to manage 10 or more each day. If I had a few hundred or thousand I sure would like to make my life easier.

well, lots and lots of people use virtualization in a completely different manner. What yuo describe is basic desktop virt, which doens't need management, only a convenient GUI if anything (hello vbox!), but for server virtualization, management is essential. When you're running hundreds of hosts, that in turn run thousands of VMs, without a good management solution which would allow for easy provisioning, resource allocation and management, power management, clustering and conflict resolution you'll end up without a unemployed very quickly