On 30.11.2011 Cisco updated the Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure using VMware View document to VMware View Version 4.6. Check it out to get information.

Link: Cisco

The VMware View Youtube Channel has been updated recently with 4 news videos. The videos are highlighting the some of the workflows when managing a virtual desktop environment.

Link: VMware View Youtube Channel

Thanks to Joel Lindberg for Retweeting @donjduncanHP’s Tweet regarding the HP Client Virtualization Reference Architecture on Twitter.

HP Client Virtualization Enterprise Reference Architecture with VMware View http://bit.ly/mgxhNL #HPCI #HPDisover #VDI #View

See how you can use HP’s solution to seliver a building block based enterprise client virtualization infrastructure.

Link: HP

Check out the featured jobs:

Staff Engineer – VMware View (End User Computing BU) Job:
Apply Now – http://ow.ly/5bdJx

R&D Manager – VMware View (Server Hosted Desktop – End User Computing)
Apply Now – http://ow.ly/5bdOS

Sr. Development Infrastructure Engineer – Desktop Infrastructure Group
Apply Now – http://ow.ly/5bdYn

Sr. Member of Technical Staff – VMware View Job
Apply Now – http://ow.ly/5be6d

All jobs related to VMware View: http://ow.ly/5beMt

Search all our open positions worldwide: http://jobs.vmware.com

That was a surprise when I watched the VMware Lab Video from Brian Madden’s BriForum 2011 in London. My colleagues already showed a quick demo of the VMware View Client for Android tablets. It has exactly the same gesture recognition like the VMware View Client for iPads.

Link: BriForum 2011 London VMware Lab Video

An SSL certificate could be described as a data container that includes the identity of a computer, the public key and the digital signature of the publisher of the certificate. Certificates are used to confirm the authenticity of a website, or the the public key contained can be used to encrypt the connection between a client and a server.

Making no further action the View Server is using a self-signed certificate. When you open the website of the View Server it gives you a security warning back that states that the certificate comes from an untrusted source.

To use your own certificates that have been signed from a trusted Certification Authority (CA), you can use the keytool that comes with the view installation on the Connection Server. With this tool, you create a trust store on the View Server, where your certificates  can be integrated. Request a certificate from an authorized CA. This may be the CA of your company, or a third party such as thawte, VeriSign and GlobalSign. It is also possible to integrate already-signed certificates for your server. In the next section, you can read the entire process for requesting a certificate from the Microsoft Certification Authority. For certificates from other parties, please refer to their documentation.

Certificates are only used by Connection Servers which are having direct connections with the clients. If you are using the Security Server for connections the certificate is needed only by this server.

Companies that use the Active Directory as their directory service, also often use  the Microsoft Certification Authority for their security certificates. The following example explains the steps needed to apply for a certificate and then to integrate this in a VMware View Server. First, you must apply for a certificate from the CA. Use the Microsoft Internet Explorer on the View Server because only with this browser the  import and export of the certificate works without problems. "Open the Internet Explorer and type the correct address of your certification server in the address bar." This should be <certificatesrevername.fqdn> /certsrv/. Replace the wildcard certificate server name with the computer name of the appropriate server and fqdn with the fully qualified DNS domain name. Apply for a certificate on the website and mark it as exportable. After the newly requested certificate has been approved you revisit the site with Microsoft Internet Explorer and install the issued certificate. The certificate will be stored in the local certificate store now and you can export it in a file from there. In Internet Explorer perform the following action. »Click on the Tools menu and select Internet Options." This will open a window where you can change the properties and options of your Internet Explorer. »Select content from the tab and then click the button labeled Certificates. In the following dialog you have to select the certificate of your server and then export it to a directory on your hard disk. It is important that you export the certificate with the private key in the PFX file format. Name the certificate i.e. as server.pfx. After that you’ve to export the certificate for the CA of your company in the file format X509.

After a successful export of both security certificates, the trust store can be created. You have to use the keytool application. To use the application you should first adjust the environment variables on your computer so that the keytool can run without using long file paths. Open a Windows command line on the View server and type the following command:

set PATH =% PATH%,% Program Files% VMware \ VMware View \ Server \ jre \ bin \

Then switch the command prompt to the  directory where you’ve saved the certificates. Using the exported CA certificate in the keytool you’ll now generate the truststore. Replace <ca-alias name> by the name of the Certification Authority and <ca-certificate name.ce> by the real name of the CA certificate.

keytool-import-alias-file <ca-alias name> <ca-certificate name.ce>-keystore truststore

The newly created trust store and the PFX certificate must be copied to the subdirectory \sslgateway\conf in the program directory of the VMware Server View. If there is no file named locked.properties in the directory you’ve to create it as normal text file with Notepad. Otherwise, you open the existing file and modify it with the following parameters.

keyfile = server.pfx

keypass = <secret>

trustKeyfile = truststore

truststore type = JKS

useCertAuth = true

Please ensure that you’ve the correct password for the certificate in the keypass parameter. Afterwards the View Connection Server service must be restarted. This can be done via the Windows Services Manager. Check the Windows Event Log and the View server log files under c: \documents and settings\all users\application data\ vdm\logs for errors. If the View Connection Server service is not strating, there might be an issue with the certificate or password.

When you have to configure your firewall policies for a VMware View environment it’s sometimes a little bit hard to find a simple overview of all the necessary ports and firewall settings.

To help you doing your job, I provide you here a comprehensive overview of all important communication flows of such an implementation.

This documents is a consolidated aggregation of the information you can find in the following documents:

• VMware View Architecture Planning Guide (View 4.6)
• KB1012382 – TCP and UDP Ports required to access vCenter Server, ESX hosts and other network components

Perimeter Firewall Rules

DMZ Firewall Rules

Connection Server Rules

Transfer Server Rules

View Agent Rules

View Client Rules (internal / without using Security Server)

View Client Rules (external / using Security Server)

HTTP and HTTPS-Traffic can be proxied on the application layer.

Every other protocol should only be proxied using a transparent TCP-/UDP-Proxy.

Stuart Robinson, Manager of Systems Engineering at Teradici shows how well PCoIP performs over a WAN connection from Orlando to Canada. This video is from this years HIMSS2011 event in Florida.

I’m really surprised that it works, but a guy from France got a Linux VM working with the VMware View Agent. I don’t speak French but what I get from his article is that he used Xrdp in the VM. I guess he used Wine, a Windows emulator for Linux to get the View Agent running. It’s awesome, check his blog. But don’t forget: This is highly unsupported.

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You may have already read about an issue where upgrading your ESX 4.0 host  breaks connections to hosted virtual desktops with the PCoIP protocol. This issue only occurs when you’re using ESX 4.0 with VMWare View 4.0 and you’ve upgraded the host to Update 2. VMware released a permanent fix for that.

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