As virtualization admins, there are occasions where a remote console session with a VM is desired or necessary. Normally, that would involve installing/launching the vSphere client, going through all of the authentication steps, navigating to the proper location and launching the client. Of course, you can use the web client and although it takes a different route, the amount of work involved to get to a remote console session is quite similar.

You could continue to leave open different consoles on your desktop and spend time switching back and forth between programs, but your CPU and RAM have other things to do. It would be nice if you could just right-click on the target computer while you’re already in ControlUp and launch the session from there. Well, your wish has come true. Our latest Script Based Action (SBA) leverages your existing hypervisor connection and PowerCLI to give you exactly what you need.

If you are using PowerCLI v5.0 or greater, then we leverage our knowledge of the VM through the hypervisor to build the appropriate URL and launch it via your default browser. If you have PowerCLI 5.5 R1 or later installed on your ControlUp console, then we just take the VM name and pipe it to the appropriate PowerCLI cmdlet. If you want to start multiple console sessions, just choose which computers you need to connect to and run the SBA. All the consoles launch at once.

It really is that quick, simple and easy.  Check out the video below to see for yourself:

There is one caveat – you will need to launch a web-based remote console session outside of ControlUp. Therefore, Adobe Flash and the VMware remote console plug-ins must be installed before this will run successfully.

Manage and monitor your VDI environment from one single dashboard with ControlUp.  Read more here.