Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: Best Management Interface On an IT Appliance?

Posted by timothy on from the one-you-never-need dept.

tippen writes "The management user interface on most networking and storage appliances are, shall we say, not up to the snuff compared to modern websites or consumer products. What are the best examples of good UX design on an IT appliance that you've managed? What was it that made you love it? What should companies (or designers) developing new products look to as best-in-class that they should be striving for?"

2 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And the answer is... by mysidia · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would agree. The best appliances have good CLIs and REST interfaces. Otherwise they are just a mess of crap. Have you ever seen a SAN interface? Or Vmware?

    Yes.... NetApp DataOnTap's SSH shell + OnCommand and VMware ESXi SSH console and .NET vCenter client are some examples of Companies designing management interfaces properly.

    If you think THOSE or bad............. then I got a ton of devices with crappy CLIs and GUIs to show you.

    *Now VMware is moving in the crappiness direction with their whole deprecation of the .Net client, and shiny new crappy Web1.5 Flash-enabled webUI developed using Adobe flex, but newer vSphere not in production, so don't count the horrible unusable web "UI" against them just yet.

  2. Re:None by msauve · · Score: 4, Interesting

    s/telnet/ssh/

    I prefer my critical infrastructure management to be somewhat secure.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law