I'm not sure how others see the current implementation of (remote) tasks in OME. To me, it has room for improvement in the following areas.
- Ability to hide/delete sample task
- Separate task definition from the schedule
- Username/Password handling for task
- Make better use of tree hierarchy
Unfortunately, the task to execute, the schedule and the credentials, are all mixed into one element.
Use case: I'd like to create predefined tasks, which I'd run manually. There is no option to not run it right now. Therefore, I guess, OME is bothering me to enter credentials, even though I just changed the command line.
Second, what is the purpose of providing credentials at definition time, when I need to re-enter them at execution time? Other systems separate these elements, and i.e. make the credentials storage an option at task definition phase.
The tree could be used differently, i.e. group for tasks and schedules. And maybe one for task templates. Right now I'm using command line to power off machines so the built in separation has no added value. If I right click on a task to run now or run once, it could be added to the scheduled section.
And finally, integrating firmware upgrades into this task area would be great. With OME 1.x I was never able to apply a BIOS or FW update (or CMC to make things worse), while the OS was running. I never tried it with 2.0 yet, but I will at the next opportunity. So here, a combination with power operations and schedule would come in handy, or as Rob mentioned, the concept of a 'job'. I do support a job concept that could contain different tasks.
To make things of this nature reliable, in my opinion, it is imperative to have a working feedback channel (when is the server really off). This can then allow for retries.