I’ve been reading about the release of a public beta of Veeam FastSCP 3. Sander, Arne and the guys over at VMBlog.com all made a blogpost about this release. Duncan jumped in and compares FastSCP to WinSCP. I’d like to pick up on that with the following post:
What’s wrong with the Datastore Browser?
I’ve used many filetransfer programs like WinSCP and Veeam’s FastSCP, but only to compensate for the lack of any form of interaction within the VMware Infrastructure Client’s Datastore Browser.
Since VMware released it’s 3.5 branch of ESX, it has been possible to use the Datastore browser for simple upload, download, move and delete operations. I find the speed of the Datastore Browser comparable to Veeam FastSCP.
Simply because VMware provides in a sufficient alternative to manage files on datastores, I never used FastSCP (or WinSCP for that matter) anymore. Why should I?
I always have had a grudge against FastSCP, because I find their use of the term ‘SCP’ misleading. FastSCP uses a SCP control channel to negotiate credentials, but uses a unencrypted channel to transfer the data.
The datastore browser does in fact do the same thing: when logging in with the VIClient, the credentials are negotiated using SSL, while the actual filetransfer is done using the NFC (Network File Copy) over port 902.
While Veeam FastSCP can be using for things like host-to-host datacopy, and generally has some more options, I doubt that I’ll ever use them. I just feel safer using the Datastore Browser. Why use a 3rd party product if the supplied product is just as good?
Yeh I think you hit the nail on the head – if you need host-to-host data xfr, FastSCP is great. But if not, there’s not really much of a need for it.
I did a write up on that subject here and point out things that are different about the datastore browser compared to other methods.
http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/different-methods-for-browsing-vmfs-data-stores/
Just from the top of my head (there could be more), but the main reasons to use FastSCP instead of Datastore Browser are:
1) Support for Linux/NFS as source or target
2) Support for moving files between standalone ESX hosts (or between hosts in different vCenters)
3) Super fast ESX-ESX and ESX-Linux transfers due to compression
4) Access to ESX service console partitions
5) Built-in file editor (handy for tweaking ESX config files)
6) Windows, Linux, ESX drag-n-drop file management in a single console.
If you don’t need all this then yes, you don’t need FastSCP. But for me, it’s a true saviour.
I find Veeam to work more reliably. The datastore browser is extremely flaky and as the rest of the VIC of dismal quality for an enterprise product.
Especially when connecting to vCenter rather than to ESX directly I don’t get any feedback whatsoever what is going on. I have no idea if the files copy or not, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
Never had an issue with Veeam FastSCP.
Dave, I must disagree with you on the overall quality of the VIC Datastore Browser. It hasn’t failed me at all, and does what I need it to do. With the release of vSphere, I find that the Datastore Browser is even faster and gives a better overall impression.