With the release of vSphere 5.1, many new features were added and I really like some of the new search capabilities which can be great timesavers when administering a vSphere environment.
You have always been able to search the inventory but now we have the ability to see our results categorized with inventory lists found in the vSphere Web Client which help quickly locate what your are seeking. You can run really specific searches across multiple object types and conditions and then save them for future use so you don’t have to repeat the selection process, all of this can be accessed from anywhere in the vSphere Web Client.
Another new feature that further enhances the search capabilities is called tags. Tags are the ability to create custom labels and or metdata and apply to any object with the vCenter inventory for say organization and or grouping. Objects can have multiple tags so if you have ever come across the limitation with folders where an inventory object can only exist in one folder at a time, tags is your answer. The other great usecase about tags is they are fully searchable so you can now provide granular searches on the attached labels and metadata to further reduce time when retrieving information.
To show these new search capabilities I have added the following video to demonstrate these great time saving features vSphere 5.1.
