Server GUI Use Case

[John Unland]

Here is some use cases I came up with that Stephen G. wanted.

Case 1: Migration of servers.

Ex: Server A is a old model so were going to migrate the configuration
to the new Server A. (You really have to be there physically there to
mess with hardware / networking)

Case 2: Install / Remove Hardware.

Ex: Faulty RAM / CPU / Hard drive (That is not hotswapable) you want a
quick way to identify the server and turn it off from a KVM inside the
rack. (Not all company's will have a dedicated machine to SSH or go
into a web-browser to configure these things. They may still have
KVM's inside there cabinets.)

Case 3: Installation of server software (Open Source AND Proprietary).

Ex: Bitnami + your appliance, a appliance software stack where you can
install it in a VM or locally inside a desktop. However you need to
have a GUI to configure / start/stop / view logs to install locally.
(They still have there own web interface in a browser but you still
need a GUI to install it.)

Sidenote: Case 3 ~ When you install Bitnami + your appliance locally
it uses the Container feature like Docker so it does not interfere
with other configurations in the same server.

When I was doing my research at my University, I opted to give the
user to use either the Ajenti, because it was a quick overview of your
server / services that you were running. AND I wanted to have a
configuration / overview control panel locally (That I was going to
build in-house) so that you could have more advanced outlook on your
server as well as local documentation, Hardware Install / Uninstall
Wizard, and some other helpful stuff for the person. Because I figured
that a small business didn't have a IT staff so it had to depend on
ques from the software logs / messages and the documentation. But you
could pretty much run the server from either both or one of them just
fine...

I know for the beta and I think the full release you want just the
base + essential server roles, and then later down the road your going
to define more. How about you leave the essential roles for now that
way you will have somewhat have a base to go off of other servers
(ownCloud, Round Cube, HPC roles, etc.), BUT create a template so that
members of the community can create there own roles and add it to a
repo list. Kinda like having the Play Store on Android but for
servers. I know you are still in Alpha phase but this is just
something to consider, but I digress.

So those are my cases, hope this was some of help to the SIG.