Today VMware’s partner Teradici announced a significant new releases from their PCoIP zero client and host card firmware and the PCoIP Management Console.

The following releases are now available for download on the Teradici support site (techsupport.teradici.com):

• Firmware 3.5.0 for PCoIP Zero Clients and PCoIP Host Cards.
• PCoIP Management Console 1.7.0

The new firmware update includes the following enhancements:

• USB2.0 with VMware View sessions
• Imprivata OneSign Virtual Desktop Access via proximity cards with VMware View
• IEEE 802.1x network security
• IPv6 support.

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Today VMware released a new client for the iPad and Android devices. Version 1.2 is optimized for VMware View 5, has support for iOS 5 including AirPlay and contains presentation mode for use with external displays and AirPlay.

VMware View Client for Android makes it easy to access your Windows virtual desktop from your Android with the best possible user experience on the Local Area Network or across a Wide Area Network.

It requires at least VMware View 4.6 and only has PCoIP only connectivity for excellent interactive performance.

The VMware View client for Android can be found on the Android Market.

The VMware View client for the iPad can be found in the iTunes Store.

It’s a release party at VMware today. After VMware Workstation 8 and Fusion 4, VMware now released VMware View 5.

VMware View 5 will deliver better PCoIP performance, more supported client devices and integrated persona management.

The biggest differences are the media services, integrated persona management, several PCoIP enhancements and extended client support.

View Media Services for 3D Graphics
This enables basic 3D applications in View desktops without like Aero, Office 2010 or those requiring OpenGL or DirectX without the need for specialized graphics cards or client devices.

View Media Services for Integrated Unified Communications
Which enables and integrated VOIP and View desktop experience for the end-user with an architecture to provide optimized performance for both the desktop and unified communication.

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As I said yesterday, VMworld is always the time and place for VMware to announce new products and technologies.
Today was not any different.

VMware announced the next version of their virtual desktop solution, VMware View 5 which will become available in the coming weeks.

VMware View 5 will deliver better PCoIP performance, more supported client devices and integrated persona management. Also, VMware’s Horizon App Manager application broker will get a mobile version with ThinApp and View integration.

Persona management
VMware finally integrated the Virtual Profiles management tool which they acquired from RTO Software last year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t support XP to Windows 7 profile compatibility. Probably because of the RTO Virtual Profile problems VMware encountered with  Windows 7 compatibility.

But the integrated View Persona Management feature does provide a basic way to manage user data and settings, application data and Windows registry settings. By doing so, the user profile is now independent of the virtual desktop, so the end user can log into any View desktop and see his profile.

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VMware in collaboration with Teradici is working hard to improve the rich user experience even more by adding new features and improving existing ones. The vDesktops running on VMware View can be reached through lots of different devices including Apple iPads or Android-based tablets. The VDI solutions on the market are getting more and more mature in a rapid fashion.

New PCoIP enhancements will be released with the next release of VMware View. PCoIP Optimization Controls will be one of them, with these controls you can tweak the bandwidth usage which can result in a 75% bandwidth improvement. This is huge!

What is in the PCoIP Optimization Controls:

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I often get questions about how to license Microsoft Windows 7 in a VMware View VDI deployment, I will try to elaborate what is needed in general and for specific scenarios. By understanding how they apply to common VMware View scenarios you can calculate and try to get the most out of existing and new licenses needed.

Every device you want to use to access the VMware View environment, with Windows 7 Desktops, needs to be licensed. It does not matter if it is a PC, a Thin or Zero client, an iPad or similar devices, every device accessing Windows 7 via VDI needs to be licensed.

You have two ways to license the environment, you can utilize the Software Assurance Windows Virtual Desktop Access Use Rights benefit at no additional cost; or you purchase Windows VDA subscription. Windows VDA is licensed per access device. There is currently no option to license Windows VDA per user.

VDA through SA or VDA subscription?

Certain devices, such as thin or zero clients, do not qualify for Software Assurance coverage for Windows. To license these devices for use with VDI you will need Windows VDA subscription. The rule of thumb is that if it isn’t a full blown Windows Desktop Operating System with Software Assurance (SA) you will need VDA subscription licenses to access the VMware View vDesktops.

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VMware Next Step in End-User Computing roadshow June 2011 from Ton Hermes, Senior SE VMware on Vimeo.

The Future of End-User Computing goes much further than just delivering a vDesktop and vApplications to users. Users today are demanding more and more that functionality is available 24/7, where new functionality can be immediately obtained when needed and that they can use a device of their choice to work with.

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The competition in the VDI space is fierce and VMware is slowly closing the gap with the features their products are offering compared to the competition.

Although the gap is closing VMware is still very much in the lead when it comes to setting up and administrating the virtual environment.

On the YouTube channel vmwareview there are four video’s released showing some administrating tasks for both VMware view 4.6 and Citrix XenDesktop 5.

Each video aims at a different task:

• Video one is about creating a master image
• Video two shows how to create a desktop pool
• Video three shows how the add/remove a desktop
• Video four is showing how to remove a desktop pool

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A few minutes ago, VMware released the VMware View client for the iPad.

As of today the VMware View client for the iPad is available from the Apple AppStore for free.

The iPad View client fully supports PCoIP and contains a few unique new gestures. For a decent session using PCoIP you will need a WiFi connection because the bandwidth requirements are similar to those of a common thin- or FAT client.

The iPad View client is compatible with the new iPad 2 but does not support the use of the integrated cameras at the moment.

You can watch a demo of the VMware View client for the iPad below.

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Last night VMware released the new version of VMware View.

The new version 4.6 includes new features, product improvements and more than 160 bug fixes.

Here is a list:

• Security servers PCoIP support
  Security servers now include a PCoIP Secure Gateway component which offers the following advantages:
  • The only remote desktop traffic that can enter the corporate data center is traffic on behalf of a strongly authenticated user;
  • Users can access only the desktop resources that they are authorized to access;
  • No VPN is required, as long as PCoIP is not blocked by any networking component;
  • Security servers with PCoIP support run on Windows Server 2008 R2 and take full advantage of the 64-bit architecture;

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After installing the patches described in Microsoft Knowledge Base articles 2482017 or 2467023 Windows 7 clients are unable to connect from the View Client to the View Connection Server.

According to a VMware Knowledge Base article there is a conflict with two security bulletins issued for Windows 7, causing disruptions for VMware’s View Client and creating connection failures for users attempting to access the View Client Server.

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Last week I visited a new project at which the client wants to virtualize their desktops.

During the kickoff the client mentioned that they use a variety of applications, clients and operating systems and want to deliver all these desktop flavors to their users.

Nothing new so far.

But this variety of clients and operating systems also includes Apples, MacBook (Pro)’s, etc using Mac OS X. Running a View client on a Macbook Pro with Mac OS X is no problem but provisioning Mac OS X as a virtual desktop is a whole different story.

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Last week we had a meeting with a McAfee Sales Engineer and he told us something I have been waiting for for a long time.

McAfee now has a product especially for virtualized environments, McAfee MOVE (Management for Optimized Virtual Environments). After Trend Micro, McAfee is now the second anti-virus company, that I know of, which has a product especially for virtual environments.

McAfee’s Management for Optimized Virtual Environments (MOVE) platform is combines speed ad security by significantly reducing the overhead of protecting individual machines in a VMware or Citrix virtual environment. Support for Microsoft Hyper-V is not available yet.

McAfee MOVE does this by offloading all anti-virus tasks to an appliance/server which needs to be installed on each ESX host or XenServer in a cluster. The only McAfee components which needs to be installed on the virtual server or desktop is the McAfee MOVE client and the ePO agent.

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With the release of VMware View 4.5 comes the challenge to upgrade your existing installation to this new version.

The upgrade is not that difficult but because I promised you all a ‘How to upgrade to VMware View 4.5‘ I will provide this service anyway.

Before you start first a few pointers:
1. make a back-up of the VMware View systems that you’re going to upgrade;
2. If some of your end users are using the Client with Offline Desktop, ask them to check in their View desktops;
3. when you have multiple connection servers and you are upgrading from 4.0 to 4.5, you need to disable the VMware View Connection Server service on all Connection servers. (Thanks Sven)
4. If you are using vSphere, you must have vSphere 4.0 Update 2 or vSphere 4.1. If you are using VMware Infrastructure, you must have VMware Infrastructure 3.5 Update 5 and VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6.

Also check the official VMware View Upgrade Guide.

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After the announcement of VMware View 4.5 at VMworld 2010, VMware released the new version of View yesterday.

If you are interested in the new features and improvements see our previous post.

If you want download an evaluation of the VMware View 4 .5 visit the VMware View website.

I hope to publish a ‘How to upgrade VMware View 4 to 4.5′  this week.

Today, at VMworld 2010 in San Francisco, VMware announced the launch of VMware View 4.5.

VMware View 4.5 is packed with loads of new features which increases VMware View use cases and definitively narrows the gap with Citrix XenDesktop.

In fact, Chris Wolf from Gartner has declared View 4.5 as an enterprise ready desktop virtualization solution.

I’ve attended the View 4.5 beta program and I can honestly say that View 4.5 is a huge improvement. In the past, we had to deploy XenDesktop for VDI deployments with specific customer demands but with the release of View 4.5 these scenarios have decreased significantly.

General availability for VMware View 4.5 is set for early September.

Here are some of the improvements/features in View 4.5:

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We’ ve been doing quite a few VMware View POC’s and the question that colleagues keep asking me is:
‘How do I optimize my Windows guest OS for use with VMware View?’.

First of all, I primarily use x86 versions of Windows XP and 7. The disk usage is much less, I seldom need more than 4 GB of RAM and application compatibility is still an issue on x64 systems.

After installation of the guest operating system in the template virtual machine I do the following to optimize the operating system for use with VMware View.

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There was an issue discovered earlier today that prevents View Composer from working with vSphere 4.1.

VMware apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused you. If you know how to spread the word to your friends and colleagues, please do so.

It is always nice to see how Citrix fan-boys reacts on publications about VMware View. Especially when it comes to an comparison or XenApp for View trade in. It is often said that Citrix listens to their customers but they are seldom heard! People need simple solutions in a complex IT world. Why pay for a very high end piece of engineering like a Ferrari if I can get the job done with a Volkswagen! OK, it is nice to have a car that nobody else has and can do 320 km/h but in times were budgets are under pressure, I have a hard time defending expensive, complex and high-end solutions.

The fact that VDI is putting a significant load on the storage is true, but that counts for every VDI solutions including XenDesktop, so no differences there. Also the new upcoming version of View includes a basic profile management solution “Persona Management”. Which makes the use of linked clones a very workable solution.

When you compare installing View and XenDesktop you will see the following diagram.

When it comes down to management consoles the two solutions also look very different.

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As a reaction on the Citrix program to trade in your VMware View licenses for XenDesktop, VMware comes with a program to trade in your XenApp licenses for VMware View.

The trade in program is quite simple: For the price of 3 years XenApp SA (€ 182,-) you will get View Premier and 3 years SnS.

VMware’s offer differs from the one from Citrix in a few way’s.

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