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VMware Clarity – Why should you care

  • November 23, 2016
  • 6 min read
Michael Ryom has over 10 years experience working with network, storage Windows, Linux and VMware technologies. His knowledge sharing as a blogger, public speaker and co-leader of the Danish vRops User Group has rewarded him the vExpert award three years in a row. He works for the Pan-European and US based, company Proact as a Cloud Architect on VMware solutions and automation, hybrid cloud and is an expert in vRops and Log Insight. Michael is certified VCP-DCV, VCP-NV, VCP-Cloud/CMA and VCAP-DCD.
Michael Ryom has over 10 years experience working with network, storage Windows, Linux and VMware technologies. His knowledge sharing as a blogger, public speaker and co-leader of the Danish vRops User Group has rewarded him the vExpert award three years in a row. He works for the Pan-European and US based, company Proact as a Cloud Architect on VMware solutions and automation, hybrid cloud and is an expert in vRops and Log Insight. Michael is certified VCP-DCV, VCP-NV, VCP-Cloud/CMA and VCAP-DCD.

Vmware Clariy logo

What is Clarity and why should you care?

To answer the last question first. Clarity means the dead of flash-based clients in VMware products. Hooray! If that is not enough for you to want to celebrate this little victory. Just know there will be one less flash-based UI out there. So if that isn’t reason to celebrate, I do not know what is. Wait, that is not all. All flash-based UI’s are going be replaced with something else – Say hello to Clarity! Flash is out and the black is called Clarity, but wait. What is Clarity?

vmware clariy logo

 

Clarity is the name of the new design framework, which VMware has built to replace all    other UI’s. It has been created based on HTML/CSS and Angular 2, but more than that, it comes with an UI tool kit and UX guides to get you started. When I say, “get you started”, I really mean it. VMware has open sourced the framework. So not only are you going to see more of this. You can also build your own applications based on this framework. As with most things open source these days, it is available on GitHub right here. As if that was not pretty cool in itself. VMware has also created the documentation to back their support of this open source project 100%. This is the true commitment to the cause. Documentation that should get you up and running in no time is available here.

Only one question still open on Clarity, what does it look like?

Vmware Clariy window

Currently, Log Insight 4.0 and the new client in vSphere 6.5 are the only products to have the new Clarity design. As you can see, the Clarity design has some distinct features. The first thing you will notice is the bar at the very top; sometimes this bar can seem a little massive. Navigation menu is to the left. My overall feeling is that it is somewhat flat, but has a very nice and clean look, which helps ease navigation and the flow of the UI.

What the Platypus is that?

I also mentioned something about APIs. Well, I sure did, but it really has nothing to do with Clarity. It is another project called Platypus. Just like Clarity, Platypus is open source and available on GitHub. You can find out more about it here.

PlatypusPlatypus is as mentioned an open source project and is again based on other open source projects, namely Open API and Swagger UI. The promise is to bring better API documentation across all of VMware’s products. Currently, the following products have support.

  • vRealize Automation 7
  • vRealize Operations 6.2
  • vRealize Log Insight 3.3
  • vRealize Orchestrator 7
  • NSX 6.2

As if this was not enough, there is also a project to improve APIs across VMware’s entire product suite. The future of VMware and automation suddenly does not look that bad.

Hey! Found Michael’s article helpful? Looking to deploy a new, easy-to-manage, and cost-effective hyperconverged infrastructure?
Alex Bykovskyi
Alex Bykovskyi StarWind Virtual HCI Appliance Product Manager
Well, we can help you with this one! Building a new hyperconverged environment is a breeze with StarWind Virtual HCI Appliance (VHCA). It’s a complete hyperconverged infrastructure solution that combines hypervisor (vSphere, Hyper-V, Proxmox, or our custom version of KVM), software-defined storage (StarWind VSAN), and streamlined management tools. Interested in diving deeper into VHCA’s capabilities and features? Book your StarWind Virtual HCI Appliance demo today!