vSphere Mobile Watchlist

Recently I had written a small blog about VMware Fling: vCenter Mobile Access which is a small virtual appliance and a iOS application to interface into vCenter.  A few days after this VMware released vSphere Mobile Watchlist on the face of it performs a very similar role to the fling namely an interface to vCenter from your mobile device it doesn't have the requirement for the virtual appliance and talks directly to vCenter. Unlike vCenter Mobile Access which is available for iOS only and for both iPhone and iPad, vSphere Mobile Watchlist is iOS if for iPhone but not iOS iPad, it is available for Android.

When accessing my homelab vCenter which is default setup with default SSL to connect via vSphere Mobile Watchlist requires me to Trust All Certificates.

Once you look a little closer as the name suggests vSphere Mobile Watchlist you connect to vCenter and target to monitor specific virtual machines. To do this is pretty simple just change to Watchlist tab and select the VMs to monitor.

When selecting you can get more information about each VM by clicking the i info button

You can choose to monitor them using celluar network as well as wifi in the general settings tab.

It provides event based alerting and a method of powering off \ on, restarting VMs,  if this meets your usecase and your vCenter server has internet routable IP connectivity then great.  Unfortunately for me my work environment is secure and for my homelab the fling offers me greater flexibility.