Since James Brown rightfully took the title of "the hardest working man in show business", I suppose that it is only right that we start calling Andrew Kutz the hardest working man in VMware Infrastructure Plug-ins.

Last month, I told you how Andrew reverse engineered plug-in capabilities for VI3 VirtualCenter. And to kick things off, he not only created what many called an extremely useful or much needed GUI plug-in tool for VMware's Storage VMotion, but he also started to document the process so that other interested developers could begin to create their own useful plug-ins as well.

Andrew and his company, lostcreations, clearly state that these documented procedures and the plug-ins being created are in no way endorsed or supported by VMware. They are provided "as-is".

While at VMworld Europe, I heard the name Andrew Kutz and lostcreations mentioned in at least two break-out sessions and one hands-on lab. VMware is well aware of what Andrew has started, and in fact, I was told by at least one VMware employee that VMware is going to be releasing their own documentation and procedures on how to create your own "supported" plug-ins. Until that time however, lostcreations is moving full steam ahead.

Kutz has launched a new Web site for this very purpose, aptly called viplugins. Here, lostcreations intends to provide developers with a location to store and distribute other VI plug-ins that are being developed.

Already, there is quite an impressive list of plug-ins being made available.

One of the latest entries and perhaps most interesting additions to the list is Invoke. Andrew describes it like so:

"Invoke allows third-party applications, such as Perl scripts, Java applications, or other .NET programs, to be launched directly from within the VI 2.5 client using the currently authenticated session cookie. Aside from our original SVMotion plugin, Invoke is the most important piece of software designed to extend the VI client to arrive on the scene to date. Invoke is by its existence proof that a simple idea can be incredibly powerful in implementation. Download the Invoke plugin and see what kind of mash ups you can create!"

"Invoke will allow IBM or VizionCore, or anyone, to launch applications directly from the VI client using an existing session. This preserves experience continuity for users by enabling single-sign-on. It also allows non C# languages to act like plugins. You could launch a modal Java window (swing, awt, it doesn't matter) and it would act like a plugin, using the authentication token from the VI session."

See? What did I tell you? Extremely interesting.

But in addition to these newly added plug-ins, the VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Plugin and Extension Programming Guide from lostcreations has also been updated, with the latest version (1.3) being released today. You can download the guide, here. And remember, once you read through the documentation, feel free to share your creations on this site.

Posted by David Marshall on March 11, 2008 07:27 PM