Visibility of Remote Plug-in Views

In an Extended Linked Mode (ELM) environment, the vSphere Client is capable of loading views from plug-in instances registered with any of the linked vCenter Server instances. For the following examples, suppose you are working with three linked vCenter Server instances: VC1, VC2, VC3. You register instances of plug-in A with VC1 and VC2, but not with VC3.

When you log in to a vCenter Server instance, it checks for plug-ins available on other linked vCenter Server instances. However, plug-in views are visible in your vSphere Client only when appropriate, as defined by these rules:

  • Global views are always present in the vSphere Client, regardless of which linked instance of vCenter Server you connect to. A plug-in instance selector enables you to choose between plug-in servers. For example, if you connect to VC3 you can choose between the global views of plug-in A instances registered with VC1 and VC2.
  • The visibility of an object-specific plug-in view depends on which vCenter Server instance manages the object. When you select an object managed by a given vCenter Server instance, you have access to object-specific views served by the plug-ins registered with that vCenter Server instance. For example, if you connect to VC3 and select an object managed by VC1, the vSphere Client displays the object-specific view served by plug-in A. However, if you connect to VC1 and select an object managed by VC3, the vSphere Client does not display the object-specific view because VC3 has no instance of plug-in A registered.
  • Plug-in visibility is also limited by version compatibility between the plug-in and your vSphere Client. For example, suppose you connect to VC3 and select an object managed by VC2, but the instance of plug-in A registered with VC2 uses a new method not recognized by the older version of the JavaScript API served by VC3. Your version of the vSphere Client is unable to display the view served by plug-in A.