VMware View

This video will show you how ThinApp and Horizon Application Manager together are improving the management and entitlement of applications.

http://vmware.com/go/thinapp

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

What's New in Version 1.2

- Optimized for VMware View 5 with improved performance
- Support for iOS 5 including AirPlay
- Presentation Mode for use with external display and AirPlay
- Embedded RSA soft token simplifies login to desktop
- Background tasking to move between Windows and iOS apps
- Updated look and feel
- Integrated online help
- Buffered text input for multibyte text entry
- Now in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese
- Bug fixes

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vmware-view-for-ipad/id417993697

VMware View 5 Performance and Best Practices

This white paper describes a VMware best practices approach businesses can use to build View data protection solutions for the datacenter. The paper provides a reference architecture that can be used to develop VMware View backup and recovery solutions. It also describes backup and restore scenarios for View storage components and procedures for implementing these scenarios. Note that this paper does not address disaster recovery procedures for the View environment.

In particular, a well-planned View backup strategy improves business infrastructure availability. Implementing a stateless desktop architecture removes the need to backup virtual desktop machines, thus removing virtual Infrastructure complexity, which simplifies manageability and can reduce support cost. For highly critical systems, VMware also recommends implementing high availability architecture for virtual desktops.

Deployment and technical Considetation Guide - VMware View Backup Best Practices

Android tablets now have an awesome view, VMware View

Tedd Fox of VMware demonstrates VMware View Client for Android. Available on the Android Market and Cisco AppHQ, the VMware free Android client enables you to access your virtual Windows desktops, applications and data from anywhere. Addition information can be found on the VMware End-User Computing blog at: this link and the bits are available for download at this link.

Srinivas and his team are very excited to announce that v1.1 is now approved by Apple and is available in the App Store right now.  Be sure to first get updated vCMA so get the latest version of the backend vCMA server (v1.1) that is required for the new client. You can download the latest vCMA appliance at: http://labs.vmware.com/flings/vcma. The biggest "feature" in v1.1 of the client is to support management of ESX and ESXi hosts directly from the iPad without requiring a vCenter server instance. 

The list of features and bug fixes in this release are listed below:

New in version 1.1.0

- Support for connecting directly to a vSphere host (resolves Null Pointer Exception)
- Integrated interface to input vCMA server settings and login credentials
- Enhanced version compatibility checks between vSphere iPad application and vCMA server
- Fix for Null Pointer Exception when rebooting a host while the host was in maintenance mode
- Store password, if requested by the user, in the keychain
- Ability to properly scroll the host list in landscape mode
- Sorted host list (by name and grouped by vendor ID)
- Display center ellipsis for long virtual machine names
- Better performance metrics when connecting directly to a vSphere host
- Show “Unavailable” or “PoweredOff” message when unable to obtain performance data for a selected VM
- Reflect available actions correctly, for a selected VM, when an operation was completed
- Ability to cancel 'revert to snapshot' action

Srinivas and his team are already working on v1.2, which will address some more feature requests.

 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vmware-vsphere-client-for/id417323354?mt=8

The out-of-the-box VDI appliance from VMware and Fusion-io will save you time, money and manpower. VMware and Fusion-io break new ground in simplifying IT with this out-of-the-box, uniform virtual desktop infrastructure.

These VDI appliances allow for a quick and easy assessment of whether VDI is suitable for your company. Configuring a setup is done in three simple steps, giving you an instant view of the required hardware, software and services – and the associated investment. The low initial purchasing costs of the VDI appliance will amaze you: they are comparable to that of a new pc. It will also halve the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the VMware View desktop.

Instant answers

What hardware, software and services do I need to set up a virtual desktop infrastructure? And what are my options? These are questions you will want an answer to, before you will commit to anything. It is, after all, your investment we are talking about. The VMware View and Fusion-io VDI appliances combine the benefits of the latest, standardized VDI technology with those of a fixed price, out-of-the-box solution that is easy to set up.

Advantages

• No surprises – a dependable solution, optimized by VMware and Fusion-io
• An instant view of the required investment
• Quick and short-term implementation
• Performance guarantee by VMware and Fusion-io
• Fixed price

 BrochureVMwareViewFusion-OI2011Engels.pdf

Ericom has released their Ericom AccessNow for VMware View version 1.0 of this first-of-a-kind product. Ericom's pure HTML5 Access to View Virtual Desktops - from any HTML5-compatible web browser including from Chromebooks. Enable users to quickly and easily connect to VMware View desktops directly from within any HTML5-compatible web browser, without requiring Flash, Java or any other software to be installed on the client.

HTML5 technology represents a new frontier in interactive browser-based applications and user experience. Ericom AccessNow for VMware View capitalizes on the advanced features of HTML5 to provide secure, high-performance, web-based access to virtual desktops.

Ericom's high performance HTML5 client is the first VDI solution to provide native support for Chromebooks, Safari, IE - virtually any browser using WebSockets and http protocols. With AccessNow for VMware View, Educational, government, healthcare, financial and other organizations can now empower users with secure, browser-based access to their virtual desktops – running wholly within an HTML5-compatible browser!



Instant access to VMware View virtual desktops possible from any web browser supporting HTML5 - no software installation required on the end-user device. HTML5 technology enables development of rich, highly interactive browser-based applications. Ericom has developed a fully functional, high-performance HTML5 client that enables seamless access to VMware View virtual desktops. Running wholly within the browser, the client runs on devices with an HTML5 compatible browser and requires no additional software installation on the end-user device.

VMware Certified Associate 4, Desktop Exam LIVE. No pre-reqs, but skills required. Get certified! VMware offers world-class Desktop certifications designed to validate and recognize individuals with the technical capabilities and real-world experience needed to increase efficiency, reliability, and availability when delivering desktops from the datacenter as a managed service.

VMware Education recommends the listed courses in preparation for the VCA4-DT exam but there are no course requirements in order to take the exam.

 
 VCA4-DT Resources

This morning I’ve taken the VCP4‐DT Beta Exam. The final VCP4‐DT exam is a core component of the VCP4‐DT certification. The certification requires a passing score on the exam. The VMware Certified Professional (VCP4) and the VMware Certified Associate – Desktop (VCADT) certifications are pre‐requisites.

The VCP4‐DT certification is a requirement for the upcoming (live lab?) VMware Certified Advanced Professional: Desktop (VCAP-DT). Note: Unlike the other VCAP certifications, VCAP‐DT is not required to pursue the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) certification.

The VCP4‐DT VMware Certified exam tests potential VMware Certified Professional ‐ Desktop (VCP4‐DT) candidates on their skills and abilities monitoring and managing a View 4.5 environment. Successful candidates demonstrate mastery of these skills and abilities.

The beta exam consists of 100 questions and a short pre‐exam survey consisting of 7 questions. The questions are fair but certainly not easy. Although there was a very time short notice, I had about a week to prepare for the exam. As a VMware Certified Instructor, I have access to the instructor training guide for the View 4.5 Install Configure and Manage training. I’m glad I went through it again, the training is well aligned to the exam. I also recorded a VCP-DT Prep Video – Installing the VMware View Composer which actually contains a few interesting topics. Besides that Mark Benson did a great job with his video about The VMware View 4.6 Security Server and PCoIP.

Conclusion: Don’t take this exam for granted - you have to know your stuff and have been around in a View environment. You don’t learn troubleshooting by reading a book or watching a cool Sloef video :-) True troubleshooting skill comes from attention to detail and experience.

I’ve recorded a short video which shows you how easy a Wyse P20 can be used in a VMware View 4.5 environment. The Wyse P20 allows virtual desktops to be centrally managed in VMware View 4.5 while providing rich multimedia, high resolution full frame-rate 3D graphics and HD media, and full USB peripheral interoperability locally over a LAN - or remotely over a high-latency WAN. The Wyse P20 optimizes compression algorithms and quality in real-time to achieve the best possible image quality for the available network bandwidth, thus allowing the PCoIP system to operate in various types of networks and data rates. Wyse P20 draws under 15.5 watts of power - creating cooler working environments - in every respect.

2X Software has announced the release of its Linux-based 2X CloudClient operating system. It can easily be used as a VMware View Client running from USB. I didn’t had the time to check it out, but it looks great.
 
Go to http://www.2x.com/ccos and instantly install your FREE personal 2X CloudClient operating system on a USB device (no larger than 512 MB). Your portable CloudClient operating system can then be run from any computer that can boot from a USB device, allowing you to instantly connect to hosted virtual desktop applications, such as Google Apps, Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware. It serves as your personal cloud client you can carry in your pocket wherever you might need it.
Alternatively, burn the 2X CloudClient OS to a bootable CD-ROM, or install it on a local hard drive and run it as a Network Boot OS from your local network.

Features:

• Supports Web applications, such as Google Apps, Microsoft Live, Web browsers, and more.
• Installs and boots from any type of USB device, or from a CDROM and hard drive.
• Converts standard PC’s, laptops, netbooks or thin clients to a cloud device.

Includes virtual desktop and application clients, such as Microsoft RDP, VMware View, Citrix XenApp and the 2X VirtualDesktopServer Client.

Recently I’ve added a few new features to the vmClient which enables you to customize the visibility of menus. Because all those new settings could only be changed be editing the registry, I’ve decided to add a configuration dialog. When the vmClient is running, there’s a notification icon visible near your Windows clock in the right lower corner. You have to double click the icon in order to change te vmClient configuration settings. Within the config dialog, there’s an option to enable or disable auto logon and the preferred virtual machine setting. There’s also a tab for configuring your favourites and show or hide individual menu items. The cool feature in this release is... hide all menus, use auto logon and configure a preselected VM and voila there’s you lightweight VDI client.

The download is available at http://vmClient.nl

This morning I’ve recorded a real cool VMware View 4 PCoIP demo delivered by Willem van Engeland. In this demo Willem shows what impact a limited bandwidth of 5Mb/s and 1Mb/s can have on the performance of your view virtual desktop. The great part is that he switched back and forth between the RDP protocol and the PCoIP protocol. This way you get a real good comparison between both protocols and you can see how PCoIP improves the video quality even though the bandwidth is limited. The video is presented in the Dutch language and the audio quality is poor but take a peek at it, it’s really great stuff.