vEMan v2. VMware ESXi Manager Linux
Donation protected
Summary
The idea of vEMan is to have a graphical user interface to administrate VMware ESX directly and natively from within your Linux desktop.
There are several tools out there which are all commandline based but the approach of vEMan is to offer a graphical easy to use user experience based on a desktop client!
VMware introduced the web based VMware client since 5.x but you need a vCenter license to use it.
A working Proof Of Concept (PoC) already exists and can be tested but there is a lot of work to do to really finish it. Over 800 downloads per week and this is a Proof of Concept only!
This funding is to finance the rest of the development described in the next section.
Be part of a new great Open Source software project :-)
Take a look on what is already here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/veman/
About me
I'm Thomas an absolute Open Source lover and Security Expert. Getting experience since 2002 in both areas.
IT and solving problems there are my passion - I cannot stop until things are finished and working (my wife need to stop me and that's why I get sleep and not dying of hunger ;o) ).
I do a lot of stuff in Android develoment, e.g. porting custom ROM's etc..
Android app development is not mine I want to do the big things ;o)
If you want to know more about me simply get in contact with me ! I'm always happy for your questions and suggestions.
What can you expect?
When this funding will be a success you can expect the following:
1) vEMan will be completely VMware SDK independent (pyshere)
2) No yad dependency anymore (python GTK)
3) The same features like in the PoC version but completely migrated to python API (pysphere) which means the following migrations of existing features:
- Nice GUI for Linux users (no yad dep anymore!)
- Deploy OVF from a website to your ESX
- Deploy OVF/VMX from local disk to your ESX
- Show a list of all your online, suspended and offline VM's on your ESX
- Supporting Ressource Pools
- VM-Management: Console (Enable,Disable,Open)
- VM-Management: Snapshots (Show,Revert to,Remove,Create,Rename)
- VM-Management: Power (Stop,Shutdown,Reboot,Start,Suspend,Resume)
- VM-Management: VM status (online/suspended/offline,CPU/MEM usage and many more)
- VM-Management: Delete a VM
- ESX-Information: Global CPU & MEM usage, ESX version and many more
- ESX-Management: add user, change user passwords, change user roles, ..
4) NEW:
- Introduce VM-Management: Edit settings for RAM, CPU, ISO
The money
The amount of 57.000 € is calculated by:
1) four (4) months full development (8 hours / day, 5 days / week, 80€ / hour)
--> would be 51.200 €
If you think that is much you need to know that I need to pay taxes in Germany from this (19% USt. + LSt. )
--> about ~ 9728 + about ~ 9000. Means about 18.728 for both. That said I will receive at the end 32.418 € .
2) Plus fee for payment receivings (gofundme + stripe)
--> difficult to calculate (depends on the amount of raisings etc) about ~ 2900 € by gofundme plus ~ 1800 € by stripe. Means at least(!) about 5000 € (4700 €) for both.
3) As the things are not such easy to calculate I added a buffer of 1000 € because of the fee's in 2) (I hope that is enough but as this is new to me I will use a small amount for this buffer to not raise too much money)
4) Summary:
51200 € + 4700 € + 1000 € = about 57.000 €
... when finished earlier?
If I get all the things in time and being faster then thought the money will be used for continues development!
It is NOT blown away!
I promise that when I get finished before the 4 months ended that the rest of time will be used to enhance vEMan with other useful features which are missing!
The goal
If you want to participate at this funding you will support a great Open Source project used by many users out there.
It means that you support the will of being independent from commercial licenses by VMware and restrictions.
Because vEMan is and will stay Open Source that you or others could continue development on this and add features, fix bugs as they like!
Open Source software like vEMan is mandantory for the IT world! Could you imaging a world with proprietary software only? No chance to proof the code no chance to change it..
I couldn't. I heard about gofundme by luck and my first thought was to try to finish vEMan by a crowdfunding here because I hate unfinished things and it's my personal wish to have it really done..
Risks
If you have ever had something to do with developing software you will know that there always will be unexpected problems and risks which need to be overwhelmed.
It is really important that you know and understand the risks of this project:
First of all the timeline for this project. I'm absolutely sure that I will solve all the upcoming problems because of my long year experience , knowledge and my personal bite-through-any-problem will! The question is: will it be possible in the time I expect. Well as said I have many years in experience in the IT world and was often a project leader in this time range so I have done my best to calculate the amount of time and therefore the money needed for finishing this. To be honest I cannot give a full guarantee because of the mentioned risks but I can guarantee that I will do everything to make it true.
A second one is about the VMware API. VMware releases a SDK and offers an API to remote administrate their products. If something changes here dramatically or if VMware would stop that completely vEMan will never work. This is nothing which seems to become true but well who knows. At least I depend on the open and free API of VMware.
And as a third one the API I want to use as a connector to the VMware API named pyshere. It is still under development and is so for years even when the latest release was made in 2013 support is still there and no hints about that this project may abandoned. If I encounter problems within pysphere which made the whole migration or parts of it impossible we may cannot fully throw the VMware SDK dependency away. That means that we may still need the VMware SDK and if that would be the case I will use the raised money to add new features instead of migrating (depends on how many time is still available, of course).
Support
If you want to support this project it's obvious to do that by raising money, of course.
But that's not all:
Please support this project by linking it everywhere you can think of.
...
Thanks in advance
Thomas
The idea of vEMan is to have a graphical user interface to administrate VMware ESX directly and natively from within your Linux desktop.
There are several tools out there which are all commandline based but the approach of vEMan is to offer a graphical easy to use user experience based on a desktop client!
VMware introduced the web based VMware client since 5.x but you need a vCenter license to use it.
A working Proof Of Concept (PoC) already exists and can be tested but there is a lot of work to do to really finish it. Over 800 downloads per week and this is a Proof of Concept only!
This funding is to finance the rest of the development described in the next section.
Be part of a new great Open Source software project :-)
Take a look on what is already here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/veman/
About me
I'm Thomas an absolute Open Source lover and Security Expert. Getting experience since 2002 in both areas.
IT and solving problems there are my passion - I cannot stop until things are finished and working (my wife need to stop me and that's why I get sleep and not dying of hunger ;o) ).
I do a lot of stuff in Android develoment, e.g. porting custom ROM's etc..
Android app development is not mine I want to do the big things ;o)
If you want to know more about me simply get in contact with me ! I'm always happy for your questions and suggestions.
What can you expect?
When this funding will be a success you can expect the following:
1) vEMan will be completely VMware SDK independent (pyshere)
2) No yad dependency anymore (python GTK)
3) The same features like in the PoC version but completely migrated to python API (pysphere) which means the following migrations of existing features:
- Nice GUI for Linux users (no yad dep anymore!)
- Deploy OVF from a website to your ESX
- Deploy OVF/VMX from local disk to your ESX
- Show a list of all your online, suspended and offline VM's on your ESX
- Supporting Ressource Pools
- VM-Management: Console (Enable,Disable,Open)
- VM-Management: Snapshots (Show,Revert to,Remove,Create,Rename)
- VM-Management: Power (Stop,Shutdown,Reboot,Start,Suspend,Resume)
- VM-Management: VM status (online/suspended/offline,CPU/MEM usage and many more)
- VM-Management: Delete a VM
- ESX-Information: Global CPU & MEM usage, ESX version and many more
- ESX-Management: add user, change user passwords, change user roles, ..
4) NEW:
- Introduce VM-Management: Edit settings for RAM, CPU, ISO
The money
The amount of 57.000 € is calculated by:
1) four (4) months full development (8 hours / day, 5 days / week, 80€ / hour)
--> would be 51.200 €
If you think that is much you need to know that I need to pay taxes in Germany from this (19% USt. + LSt. )
--> about ~ 9728 + about ~ 9000. Means about 18.728 for both. That said I will receive at the end 32.418 € .
2) Plus fee for payment receivings (gofundme + stripe)
--> difficult to calculate (depends on the amount of raisings etc) about ~ 2900 € by gofundme plus ~ 1800 € by stripe. Means at least(!) about 5000 € (4700 €) for both.
3) As the things are not such easy to calculate I added a buffer of 1000 € because of the fee's in 2) (I hope that is enough but as this is new to me I will use a small amount for this buffer to not raise too much money)
4) Summary:
51200 € + 4700 € + 1000 € = about 57.000 €
... when finished earlier?
If I get all the things in time and being faster then thought the money will be used for continues development!
It is NOT blown away!
I promise that when I get finished before the 4 months ended that the rest of time will be used to enhance vEMan with other useful features which are missing!
The goal
If you want to participate at this funding you will support a great Open Source project used by many users out there.
It means that you support the will of being independent from commercial licenses by VMware and restrictions.
Because vEMan is and will stay Open Source that you or others could continue development on this and add features, fix bugs as they like!
Open Source software like vEMan is mandantory for the IT world! Could you imaging a world with proprietary software only? No chance to proof the code no chance to change it..
I couldn't. I heard about gofundme by luck and my first thought was to try to finish vEMan by a crowdfunding here because I hate unfinished things and it's my personal wish to have it really done..
Risks
If you have ever had something to do with developing software you will know that there always will be unexpected problems and risks which need to be overwhelmed.
It is really important that you know and understand the risks of this project:
First of all the timeline for this project. I'm absolutely sure that I will solve all the upcoming problems because of my long year experience , knowledge and my personal bite-through-any-problem will! The question is: will it be possible in the time I expect. Well as said I have many years in experience in the IT world and was often a project leader in this time range so I have done my best to calculate the amount of time and therefore the money needed for finishing this. To be honest I cannot give a full guarantee because of the mentioned risks but I can guarantee that I will do everything to make it true.
A second one is about the VMware API. VMware releases a SDK and offers an API to remote administrate their products. If something changes here dramatically or if VMware would stop that completely vEMan will never work. This is nothing which seems to become true but well who knows. At least I depend on the open and free API of VMware.
And as a third one the API I want to use as a connector to the VMware API named pyshere. It is still under development and is so for years even when the latest release was made in 2013 support is still there and no hints about that this project may abandoned. If I encounter problems within pysphere which made the whole migration or parts of it impossible we may cannot fully throw the VMware SDK dependency away. That means that we may still need the VMware SDK and if that would be the case I will use the raised money to add new features instead of migrating (depends on how many time is still available, of course).
Support
If you want to support this project it's obvious to do that by raising money, of course.
But that's not all:
Please support this project by linking it everywhere you can think of.
...
Thanks in advance
Thomas
Organizer
Thomas Fischer
Organizer
Fahrenzhausen
