Join the next VMUG meeting in Hamburg on 13th June 2013. This time the VMUG is all about VMware End User Computing. They’ve setup a great agenda which includes all hot topics in End User Computing. Especially the VMware Horizon Mirage part is very interesting as a customer talks about their experience during a migration.

The location is again well chosen:

Gastwerk Hotel Hamburg

Beim Alten Gaswerk 3

22761 Hamburg, Germany

And here’s the agenda:

• 10:00 Frühstück
• 10:15 Eröffnung – Christian Brosch & Lars Wulf
• 10:30 Trend Micro Live Demo: Agentenlos! Cloud-übergreifend! Einfach! Trend Micro Deep Security – die optimale Sicherheitsplattform für vmware Umgebungen – Markus Schönberger, Trend Micro
• 11:30 Horizon ThinApp, Tips und Tricks aus dem Alltag – Sacha Thiede, VMware
• 12:30 Kleine Stärkung
• 13:00 Weihnachten mal anders – Der Umzug von 2500 Arbeitsplätzen in 15 Tagen – Was FlexOffice mit VMware Mirage zu tun hat – Stefan Brandstetter, ADAC e.V.
• 14:00 Horizon View 5.2 – Claudia Leonhard, VMware
• 15:00 Kaffeepause 
• 15:30 Horizon Workspace Die Lösung!!! Claudia Leonhard, VMware
• 16:30 Ausklang an der Hotelbar

Don’t forget that you can also meet some great people there! Discuss End User Computing with other customers and of course with the VMware End User Computing System Engineers and Consultants from the Professional Services Organization.

Click here for the registration. For more information please click here for the event detail page.

This event is sponsored by Trend MICRO.

With Horizon Mirage application layering and ThinApp VMware has now two options to deploy applications to endpoints. The big difference between both products is that ThinApp is an application virtualization solution and Mirage Application Layering is not.

While this is the main difference there are still many, many differences between both products in terms of functionality and deployment options. In the following table I tried summarizes most of the differences.

If you want to know more about the differences between Mirage Application layering and ThinApp head over to horizonflux.com and of course please vote for our VMworld US 2013 session: 4863 Dare to compare: Mirage application layering and ThinApp.

Back in March VMware published the first version of Horizon Workspace which includes a component called Data. Data is the former Project Octopus, the “Dropxbox for Enterprises” without leveraging public cloud technologies. That means that your data stays in your datacenter and will be synced on the devices allowed in the policy IT has created. Within the web interface for the user, files can be previewed. By default PDF files are getting rendered but for Microsoft Office files you’ll need to install either LibreOffice or Microsoft Office components. Be aware that for Microsoft Office components each user needs a proper MS Office license. You can read more about this in the Horizon Workspace installation guide. So if you want to go for free you should use LibreOffice instead. This works also well. One of my customers had an issue whilst installing the LibreOffice. His Workplace appliances wasn’t connected to the Internet and so they couldn’t install the needed components. With a quick workaround it was possible. They’ve downloaded the zipped RPM from the LibreOffice website (Link included in the installer Script) and put it onto a local web server. After changing the download address of the file from the LibreOffice server to the local server (bold marking in the script) it just worked fine.

echo $PLATFORM | egrep -q UBUNTU

if [ $? = 0 ]; then

 LIBREOFFICE_URL=http://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/3.5.6.2/deb/x86_64/LibO_3.5.6rc2_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz

  PKGTYPE=DEB

  PKGCMD=”$DPKG -i”

else

  #LIBREOFFICE_URL=http://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/3.5.6.2/rpm/x86_64/LibO_3.5.6rc2_Linux_x86-64_install-rpm_en-US.tar.gz

  LIBREOFFICE_URL=http://192.168.1.11:280/LibO_3.5.6rc2_Linux_x86-64_install-rpm_en-US.tar.gz

  PKGTYPE=RPM

  PKGCMD=”$RPM -U –force –quiet –nodeps”

fi

Update: I forgot this session: 4960 Things you never thought were possible with ThinApp

Here we go – The public voting for the VMworld sessions is open and three of our sessions are online. It would be great if you could support us! Here is an overview of what you can expect.

Managing Windows desktops is like playing with Lego (Disclaimer: But only if using Horizon Mirage and ThinApp)

Everyone loves the simple approach of Lego in terms of inventing and building new things. Just throw some Lego bricks together and build something completely new. And when you have a new idea you can simply build something completely different again. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could build Windows desktops as easy as building something with Lego? With VMware Horizon Mirage and ThinApp you can do exactly this. Just think about all these different components like drivers, operating system, applications, anti virus as different bricks which can be combined in every possible way you can imagine. We show you how you can accomplish this using Horizon Mirage and ThinApp.

Dare to compare: Mirage application layering and ThinApp

This session compares Mirage application layering and ThinApp. We will start by examine how each of the products work and how they compare. We will discuss pros and cons of each product and show how we can offer the best of both worlds by combining them. As conclusion we will show different use cases and explain which product will the best fit.

Horizon Suite and ThinApp – the perfect match

ThinApp is now an integral part of the Horizon Suite. It brings new functionalities and advantages to each product (i.e. Mirage, Workspace and View) included in the Horizon Suite.. Do you want to know how you can track the usage of your ThinApp packages? Or maybe you always wanted to use ThinApp in your branch offices but until now it was a hassle to deploy those packages to your branch office users? VMware Horizon View, Mirage and Workspace in combination with ThinApp can help you with that. Attend this session if you want to learn what this new match made in heaven has to offer and which benefits each of the products gains.

Link: https://vmworld2013.activeevents.com/scheduler/publicVoting.do

VMware has changed the compatibility notes for VMware Horizon View 5.2 recently. The product is now supported with Oracle 11.2.0.3 databases in addition to the compatible databases listed in the installation documentation.

You can find this information on the VMware website. Please follow this link.

Link: http://www.vmware.com/support/view52/doc/horizon-view-52-release-notes.html#compatibility

It has taken a long time but finally my buddies Sascha and Matthias (Photo) have released their VMware View Book. The book is only in available in German language, so sorry for my English readers. But anyway for me it’s a great event as this is the first German language View book which was published commercially. As you may remember as a long time reader I’ve written a German language View book for version 4.6 and I’ve published it for free.

It was a coincident that I was in a meeting with Matthias today when he received the first copy of the book! German readers: Please feel free to buy this great book.

Link: http://3url.de/czt

Horizon Workspace comes as a vApp containing several virtual appliances which handle different jobs. The first rule for installing Horizon Workspace is: Get your DNS working! After that the configuration is quite easy. All setup for the vApp is done on the Configurator virtual appliance which propagates the settings to the other appliances. This information is sent via the SSH port which means that all appliances must be reachable from the Configurator via port 22. But what about the other services on the appliances? How do they communicate to each other? The following diagram gives you an overview of the open ports needed in your Horizon environment.

Please note that a few ports are configurable. This includes the connection to the database, the Active Directory, theView and SMTP server and last but not least the vCenter.

If you’re interested in VMware’s Horizon Mirage solution, this might be a great option for you to get a free training. VMware is offering a 3,5 hours self paced eLearning course on the MyLearn platform. The course covers the main features of the solution as well as the common administration tasks and more.

Here’s a quick overview of the objectives:

Objectives:

After completing the course, you should be able to:  •  Define Horizon Mirage concepts and components.  •  Explain how Horizon Mirage works.  •  List some of the key business challenges that Horizon Mirage solves.  •  Describe the main features and benefits of Horizon Mirage.  •  Describe the Mirage components and how they fit into the Horizon Mirage architecture.  •  Define the Horizon Mirage layers.  •  Discuss the tasks for configuring a Horizon Mirage System.  •  Describe the process for deploying Horizon Mirage to endpoints.  •  Recognize the main function of each of the Horizon Mirage common wizards.  •  Discuss the steps for capturing and assigning a Base Layer.  •  List the steps for capturing and assigning an App Layer.  •  Explain how an administrator uses the Disaster Recovery Wizard to restore a Central Virtualized Desktop (CVD).  •  Describe the high level tasks for performing a Windows XP to Windows 7 migration.  •  Recognize the main functions of the System Dashboard and how to use them to monitor your desktop deployment.  •  Explain how to use the Client Status window.  •  Describe how an end user performs a file-level restore and directory-level restore.  •  Discuss how the Snooze option works.  •  Recognize how the Sync Now option works.

If you haven’t heard about Mirage yet or you need more information please visit the VMware website which offers great whitepapers: http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop_virtualization/mirage/overview.html

VMware MyLearn: http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=det&id_course=173141 

Via: NTPRO.NL

In Horizon View version 5.2 + View Feature Pack 1 VMware introduced the new Unity Touch feature formally known as Project AppShift. Unity Touch is a very cool integration of Windows apps and documents in the VMware Horizon View Client for iOS and Android devices. In the screenshots you can see the Unity Touch tab which gives the user direct access to their documents or installed applications on the virtual Windows desktop. This is cool as the user doesn’t need to touch on the screen, go to the start menu etc. If you go back to the screenshot, you can see a description “Favorite applications.” At this point the user can define his favorite apps so he doesn’t need to choose “All programs” first to find an application.

So it would also make sense if IT could preconfigure this favorite apps with the most common applications, like Outlook, Word or other productivity tools. In a nutshell it is only editing the Windows Registry on the virtual desktop.

If you want to learn how it works please check this document: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/horizon-view/horizon-view-52-feature-pack-document.pdf

VMware recently announced the availability of vCenter Operations for Horizon View 1.5. The vCenter Operations for Horizon View solution is a great tool to gain comprehensive visibility into your VDI’s infrastructure health, applications and performance.

Image source: operations_dashboard_800x600.jpg

- providing automated desktop operations capabilities; with Horizon View 5.2-near-equivalent scalability (8K concurrent users), for large-scale, multi-pod and multi-data center Horizon View deployments!

- auto-installing the data collection agents in the new vC Ops Mgr 1.5 architecture with View 5.2 installation, minimizing deployment and administrative effort. (The agent can be manually deployed to 5.0/5.1 installations as well.) – providing configurable metric sets for further scalability options

- delivering pre-configured “super-metrics” for functionality such as current/max concurrent user counts for license compliance

- enhancing the View Adapter dashboard, and additional self-health features to ensure proper functioning of vC Ops Mgr for View itself – providing enhanced User Interface features for improved product navigation and problem-solving

Installation guide: PDF Download | Administration guide: PDF Download

Product documentation: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vcops-view-pubs.html

Download link: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_vcenter_operations_manager_for_view/1_5