Atlantis Computing and Teradici are giving a joint webcast on 4th April at 9:00AM PDT. Here’s the description:

You can now deploy the virtual desktops you have always wanted using your existing desktop images, tools and desktop management processes that have been in place for years. Persistent virtual desktops provide the least disruptive and easiest transition from physical PCs to virtual desktops but also come at a cost per desktop of $1,000-$2,000 when you size traditional storage to deliver equal-to-PC performance.

In this webinar, we will show you how you can deploy persistent virtual desktops that are cheaper and faster than a physical PC with benchmark results that outperform a MacBook Air using an Apple SSD. Brian Madden called it, “absolutely the fastest desktop I’ve ever used in my life.”

Atlantis ILIO Persistent VDI™ Software
• Cuts CAPEX and OPEX costs – save up to 90% on storage costs
• Amazing user experience – faster than a PC with up to 5,000 IOPS per desktop, 12 second boot times, instant app launches and email/desktop searches*
• Automated deployment to speed the project and reduce deployment mistakes. Automated install, configuration, storage sizing and data store creation across all racks simultaneously
• Lowered risks with a simpler architecture the uses existing images and update processes to manage virtual desktops
• High Availability and Disaster Recovery – will recover thousands of desktops within a datacenter or across datacenters
• Scales Out On-Demand – scales linearly by just adding servers with no additional storage

Attend our webinar to learn how you can take the simpler path to achieving VDI success.

Teradici PCoIP Technology
Teradici PCoIP technology delivers highest performance, security and user experience for VMware View deployments with its purpose-built APEX 2800 server offload card and broad portfolio of PCoIP zero clients. The innovative PCoIP protocol provides high resolution, full frame rate 3D graphics and high-definition media, with full USB peripheral interoperability locally over a LAN or remotely over a high-latency WAN.

Link: Registration

Thanks to Eric Sloof for linking to the new free Fling available at the VMware Labs website. The tool called View Pool Manager is a development from Andre Leibovici who’s well known for his blog myvirtualcloud.net. The tools allows you to manage a few tasks around the VMware View Pool management. The View Pool Manager can help you to save time, maybe a few hours a week. Try it!

Image Source: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/uploads/Screen-Shot-2013-03-25-at-10.49.41-AM.png

Link: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/2317-Latest-Fling-from-VMware-Labs-View-Pool-Manager.html

Download: http://labs.vmware.com/flings/view-pool-manager

A few days ago Tim published an article about Mirage Layering on his blog. Today he topped this one with a really great write up of the Application Layering in Mirage. This article gives you a great overview.

Image source: http://www.horizonflux.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/AssignAppLayer.png

Link: http://www.horizonflux.com/how-does-horizon-mirage-4-0-application-layering-work/

Today I received a new SSD drive for my home lab. It was time to get some new IOPS in my vSphere environment for testing VMware Horizon View 5.2. I haven’t installed View for a while so I was really surprised about the changes I’ve seen in the product. After the general View installation I’ve deployed a Windows 7 desktop pool first as I wanted to test the new HTML access today. Of course I’ve seen it before and I’ve already played with it but didn’t install it by myself yet. The HTML access option comes as a separate installer for both, the server and the agent side. The remote experience agent which is installed on the virtual desktop also brings the necessary software pieces for the Unity Touch feature. From the VMware website you can download the HTML access for the connection server as well as the user experience agent. Just login to your MyVMware account and check the downloads section. The modules are available under the Horizon View downloads. Starting the installation is easy as usual, just click on the installer.

I was surprised when I did the installation as their was nothing to configure. Only click Next, Next and Finish and all its set.

After installing the HTML access option (Feature Pack 1for View 5.2) the website at https://viewserver/ changes. Before the installation the website offered only the option to download the View Client for accessing the virtual desktops. After installing the Feature Pack you can see the “VMware Horizon View HTML Access” icon.

But before using the new feature you’ve to install the client components on the virtual desktop. Again take the installer, this time copy it to the virtual desktop or desktop template and start the installation.

The only difference to the server installation part is that you have one additional wizard dialog. It gives you the chance to decide if you want to install HTML access only or also install the Unity Touch features. But of course you want it so just click on Install and start the installation.

After the installation and proper configuration of a desktop pool you can go back to the View Connection Server web interface. Click on the HTML access and enjoy!

Ha! There is another trap which you should be aware of! HTML access requires HTML5 support but this is not offered by Internet Explorer 9 i.e. which I’ve used to access my virtual desktop. Lessons learned! I’ve installed IE9 afterwards.

Using a supported web browser gives you this! A fully functional Windows 7 desktop running in a web browser. Great! I love it.

I hope this gives you a quick overview of the HTML Access which comes with the VMware View 5.2 Feature Pack 1. Of course the HTML access doesn’t give you the full functionality of a VMware View Client which is connected via PCoIP but it is great to use on a mobile device for a few use cases.

Eric Sloof published an article on his blog today which like to a video taken by Gunnar Berger from Gartner. In this video Gunnar compares HTML Access via PCoIP. It’s definitely worth to watch it!

A few month ago when VMware announced the new Fusion Professional Licensing I’ve published an article which described the Fusion & Fusion Professional differences. This article was just an overview of the VMware announcement but now I’ve needed information about the Restricted VM’s for a customer so I had to look into it in detail. Unfortunately the VMware Fusion Professional website gives only a short description of the new feature in Fusion 5.0. The help system in Fusion also gave me just some hints, so I had to test it by myself.

First I wanted to know what security options are available with the Restricted Virtual Machines. This was easy:

• Encryption & Restriction of a virtual machine
• Prohibit Move & Copy
• USB Restriction
• Password protected

Compared with VMware’s discontinued ACE product these are only essentials but the functionality may enough for a secured local VM environment.

First of all I have to say sorry as my Fusion installation is in German language but I’ll try to translate as good as possible for you. If you call the settings of the VM you can see “Encryption” and “Restrictions”. The restrictions won’t work until encrypting the full virtual machine. The option for the restriction is greyed out first but after the encryption has been completed you’re able to configure the restrictions. For the encryption you need to configure a password.

To enable and disable the restrictions you’re asked to use a password. This is great as the user could otherwise change your configuration.

On the same page at the bottom you can see two other security options. The first one gives you the option to configure password protection when copying or moving the VM to another physical device. There will be a need to change the encryption password due to any user actions.

The second option is USB control. Here you can enable or disable USB redirection. There is no possibility to do a granular USB control.

After enabling the restrictions the user isn’t able to change most of the VM’s configuration. If you compare the next screenhots you can see what I mean.

The next screenshot was taken after disabling restrictions again.

To protect your VM you could i.e. disable the network adapters of the VM so it can’t connect to the local network or Internet.

You can even delete the network adapter and it will disappear in the configuration.

To secure the the VM you should also disable the Folder Sharing so the user can’t exchange files between the VM and the physical desktop.

In the last step you can deploy your virtual machine on Linux, MacOS or Windows as VMware Fusion Professional includes a commercial VMware Player license .

Did you ever want to know more about the USB Device Redirection in VMware View? This is your chance! Peter Brown, Senior R&D manager at VMware’s London development facilities gives you a deep insight on the VMware blogs. This is really great information.

The article gives you information about these topics:

• What is USB Device Redirection?
• USB Redirection Changes in View 5.1
• Horizon View Clients to support new USB Redirection Features
• USB Device Support in virtual environments
• USB Device Filtering
• USB Device Splitting
• Does the protocol matter?
• USB1/2/3 Compatibility
• USB Redirection performance in a LAN compared to WAN
• USB Storage device performance
• Data Encryption
• Is it possible to disable redirection
• What’s new with USB redirection in Horizon View 5.2

Link: http://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2013/03/usb-device-redirection-in-vmware-horizon-view-5-1-and-5-2.html

My colleague Tim Arenz has published a great article about Mirage Layering on his blog. A great read for everyone who loves to learn more about Horizon Mirage.

Source: http://www.horizonflux.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MirageLayersDetailed.png

Link: http://www.horizonflux.com/horizon-mirage-layers-explained/?fb_action_ids=4590982411984&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%224590982411984%22%3A119190331604473%7D&action_type_map=%7B%224590982411984%22%3A%22og.likes%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

Cortado has published an interesting news article about ThinPrint, integrated in View 5.2.

Cortado´s ThinPrint technology is integrated with the recently announced VMware® Horizon View™ 5.2. New important printing features include: VMware Horizon View 5.2 has the ability to support printer finishing options, such as hole punching, stapling, and binding on Windows 8, with the use of the ThinPrint Output Gateway virtual printer driver. Other features include driver-free printing, print data compression, and optimized printing for PCoIP.

Please visit the Cortado website for more information.

Link: http://www.thinprint.com/News/News/ArticleDetails/tabid/392/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/217/Default.aspx

VMware has published a new website with the Hardware Compatibility List for the virtual shared graphics acceleration.

Link: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/vcl/vsga.php

Coming soon! The VMware Windows 7 Migration Twitter Chat! Join VMware invites everyone to the #vEUCchat on March 26th at 6am and 9am PST. 

Who’s chatting with you?

The VMware EUC Team (@VMwareMirage) and Forrester Analyst Dave Johnson (@david_kjohnson)

To download the calendar invite click on the time: 6am | 9am

It’s recommended to use Twitterchat. The Hashtag for the event is #vECUchat

Here’s what VMware says:

Windows XP support ends in April 2014, at which time any remaining XP deployments can leave organizations at risk for compliance violations, security vulnerabilities and undesired support costs associated with user satisfaction and productivity.  This Twitter Chat is designed to help address important questions and challenges IT is currently mitigating, while offering industry insight and solutions to move toward successful implementations.

Link: http://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2013/03/windows-7-migration-twitter-chat-march-26th-at-6am-and-9am-pst-join-us.html