VMware just released a new version of ThinApp full of great features. My favourite is the new ThinApp Converter 1.0 but read the full article to learn more.

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For high availability of the View Manager environment it’s possible to add a maximum of 4 additional connection servers, called Replica servers to one View connection server group. In total you’ll have 5 servers dealing with the connecting users. During the installation of a replica server it is manually added to the server group by the administrator and it’s configuration data is written to the View LDAP database afterwards. The new server itself does create a copy of the existing View LDAP instance and replicate all data. During operations all changes on the View servers including the Global Settings, the users and the desktops are propagated between all servers in the View connection server group. If one of the replica servers is removed from the group by disconnection or installation which is permanent it is recommend to delete this servers from the View LDAP.

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Today VMware announced to start a series of technology collaborations with Google for delivering solutions that help enterprise software developers to be more efficient at building and deploying their applications. Both companies are collaborating in multiple cases to make cloud applications more productive, portable and flexible. Google is announcing support for Spring Java Applications on the Google App Engine. Using the Eclipse-based SpringSource Toolkit Suite, developers can build and deploy applications in their VMware vSphere environments, at VMware vCloud partners or directly to the Google App Engine. VMware and Google are also working together with Spring Roo, a rapid application development tool and the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). Finally teh companies are collaborating with their performance tracing technologies. You can find the Google I/O live webcast at Youtube. There is also a blog post from Steve Herrod at his blog.

One week ago VMware announced the availability of a new browser toolbar on their Support Insider Blog at: http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/. The new toolbar works with Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Safari. It gives you instant access to patches, documentation and more. The built-in RSS and Twitter capability gives you direct updates from support. A live peer to peer chat gives you the opportunity to ask an VMware expert or staff for help. You can find the download at: http://vmwaresupport.toolbar.fm.

Today VMware announced the availability of the final release of the vSphere 4.0 Hardening Guide, which includes the extensive feedback of the VMware Community on the previous draft. You can find further details on the VMware Blogs.

Industry leaders Marc Benioff, chairman & CEO of salesforce.com, and Paul Maritz, president & CEO of VMware will hold a joined Webcast to make an exciting joint product announcement on the future of cloud computing. This online session will be on April, 27, 2010 at 10:30 a.m. PDT. You can already register at www.vmforce.com.

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At Partner Exchange 2010 in Las Vegas VMware unveiled the VMware Express, a huge truck which is chock full of all kind of VMware goodness. A rolling datacenter crossing the U.S. and Canada. Check out the full article on the VMware View Blog.

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Yesterday VMware released a new version of VMware Workstation. The new maintenance release fixes some known issues and does support new operating systems. For a full description please check the VMware Workstation 7.0.1 release notes.

A few month ago I wrote an article about using VMware View 3 with Novell eDirectory. At this time I was testing the installation with View 3, a Novell Netware eDirectory (not Open Enterprise Server) and a Active Directory Server which users and passwords were in sync through DirXML. As you see this environment has two gaps: It needs two directories and it uses a legacy Netware server which will not longer be supported in the future by Novell. Lots of Novell customers have already migrated their environment to OES (Open Enterprise Server) or will do so soon. With OES Novell introduced a service called DSfW (Domain Services for Windows) which emulates an Active Directory using a modified version of Samba and other components. For a Windows workstation the DSfW looks like a proper Active Directory and offers some interesting benefits like Clientless Login (without Novell Client), Cross-forest trust between eDirectory and Active Directory and Authentication to Active-Directory-style applications. In this article I’ll describe how to use VMware View with Novell OES and DSfW but please hold in mind that this is a non-supported configuration from VMware at this time. I’ve done the testing on VMware View 3 with RDP and Novell Open Enterprise Server 2.

First of all you’ll need a successful installation of Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 and additionally configured Domain Services for Windows. As the DSfW emulate an Actice Directory there shouldn’t be an issue to use them with View and the Virtual Center Server, but there is one. Please consider the Novell Knowledge Base TID 7004290 for further information. In a short form it says that VMware Virtual Center Server fails to authenticate with DSfW and also that happens with VMware View even this is not documented in the article. The reason here is that VMware requests a valid ticket for the service principal name (SPN). If the correct SPN isn’t returned the vCenter Server attempts the authentication using NTLM/SSP. By default DSfW does not create a SPN with “ldap/<ip address of the DSfW DC>. However if you configure the SPN it works. To create the SPN edit the Domain Controller object using iManager or ConsoleOne. The DC object is the name of the DSfW server and is present in “ou=domain controllers,<dc=…>”. Change to the other tab and edit the servicePrincipalName attribute. Please add the ldap/<ipaddress> attribute value on the servicePrincipalName attribute. After that you’ll need to restart the DSfW services using the command “xadcntrl reload”.

The DSfW is not correctly configured and you can now add the Windows Server 2003 to the DSfW domain and start the installation of the View Connection Server afterwards. You shouldn’t see any issue through the installation. To get more information on how to configure DSfW for using login scripts, network shares and so on please check the Novell DSfW documentation. If you still want to use the Novell Client please check my other article for the correct setup with the View Agent.

As you see it’s quite easy to setup VMware View with DSfW but I need to say it again that this is a not supported configuration.

In a new blog article over at VMware View-Point, VMware’s Desktop CTO Scott Davis talks about broadening the View solution by extending the desktop vision to a wider range of devices and use cases. (Link) An interesting read for everyone who want’s to know more about CVP and Offline VDI.