After the huge success of the ESXi Embedded Host Client Fling, it comes as no surprise that the engineers at VMware Labs cooked up an HTML5 version for the vSphere Web Client. VMware has dubbed it the vSphere Client.

The feedback for the Host Client Fling was so overwhelmingly positive that VMware was able to complete a lot of bug fixes and tests in order to roll the feature out with vSphere 6.0 U2.

Customers have complained for years about the performance issues with the Flash-based Web Client, so if the development cycle of this new Fling is anything like the Host Client Fling, hopefully, customers will see the vSphere Client released before the end of the year.

According to VMware, there has been a huge uptake of the vSphere Client Fling, with 40% of those surveyed already deploying it into production to manage their environments, despite not officially being supported by VMware. New versions of the Fling appear almost every week, with VMware engineers incorporating any useful feedback into the product.

It’s worth noting that VMware has already started to engage with third-party vendors regarding developing their plug-ins for the new vSphere HTML5 Web Client. This plug-in development will take some time, so VMware said they may release both the Flash vSphere Client and the HTML5 Web Client side by side for a period of time until everything has been transitioned over.

End users have embraced the new HTML5 Web Client Fling and given positive responses so far, so it should be quite easy to roll this out natively with the next release of vSphere.

The important thing to note is customers will no longer have a choice. One of the reasons why VMware might have made this announcement so early is to point everyone to the vSphere HTML5 Web Client Fling in the hope that customers will help shape the new vSphere Client. It also makes the adoption of the new vSphere Client less painful, as people will have time to prepare for it.