For my last post before leaving for the holiday I’d like to announce that VMware View 4 is available for download.

One prerequisite is that you’re running on VMware vSphere 4.0 Update 1 or at least Update 3 of the VI 3.5 Suite.

The most anticipated feature (IMO) with View 4 is full PCoIP support, which brings a full rich desktop experience regardless of the connection type (LAN or WAN). This truly means that virtualized desktops are a viable option for almost any environment now.  Another amazing feature of PCoIP is the ability to support up to four monitors so now even my desktop could be a virtual one.

Here are a few of the other new features found in the VMware View 4 Release Notes:

VMware View 4  Release Notes
What’s New

Enhanced single sign-on – The Log in as current user feature is integrated with Active Directory and smart cards to help simplify the process of logging in to a VMware View desktop.

Restricted entitlements – Administrators can control user access to virtual desktops based on the View Connection Server being used for authentication.

Smart card policies – Administrators can set group policies to force desktop disconnection and require reconnection when users remove smart cards.

Domain filtering – You can use vdmadmin.exe to control the accessibility of domains and traverse trust relationships more quickly.

You can cleanly delete View desktops using scripts.

You can log in to View desktops using user principal names (UPN).

You can explicitly configure IP addresses to override those supplied by the View Agent when accessing a desktop.

Mixed Active Directory and Kerberos authentication is supported.

From viewing the VMware HCL it appears that there are a number of Thin Clients that already have full support for PCoIP and View 4.

Another topic of discussion on Twitter was the Guest O/S support matrix, there were concerns that Windows 7 wouldn’t be supported as a Guest.  From what I’ve read in KB 1015591 it appears that there is full support for Windows 95/98, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Ultimate, Business or Enterprise, and Windows 7.

So, go download your trial today and experience a true rich experience that PCoIP can provide.

Posted under View

Being on the west coast of the US typically means I’m a little late on getting to the newest announcements, especially since this one came around 5am PST while I was still dreaming of VMotion, DRS and HA. But here it is, the long awaited VMware View 4 is official, complete with it’s PCoIP goodness.

For the most part you should all understand the concept of VMware View and virtualized desktops.  Virtualized Desktops are simply Virtual Machines with a desktop operating system installed (Windows 7, etc.) running on the VMware vSphere platform.  They are delivered and managed through the VMware View Manager, this utility allows the creation and assignment of these desktop virtual machines.

So, what is new in VMware View 4?

• PCoIP – A display protocol specifically developed for virtual desktop delivery. PCoIP is able to dynamically detect and adapt to the end users network connection providing each user with the best desktop experience regardless of location or task. VMware View with PCoIP is delivered with support for software end points, which include the View Client and a VMware View virtual desktop. In addition to software support, the VMware View solution also supports PCoIP enabled end points to address the requirements of even the highest end users.

• vSphere Support – Provides the foundation for VMware View and helps to extend the power of the datacenter to the desktop environment by delivering powerful business continuity and disaster recovery features such as VMotion, High Availability, Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) and Consolidated Back Up. Optimized specifically for VMware View desktop workloads, VMware vSphere is able to scale to support 1000s of desktops to meet the requirements of even the largest organizations. In addition vCenter helps organizations to manage more than 1,000 hosts and up to 10,000 Virtual Machines from a single console providing a common platform to manage both servers and desktops from the datacenter to the cloud with unparalleled levels of scale, control and automation.

• Simplified Sign On – Addresses the need for a seamless end user experience when logging into a VMware View virtual desktop from a physical thin client or workstation. With Simplified Sign On user credentials entered into the local client can be reused to authenticate the user as they log into their virtual desktop. This makes the login process simple and efficient.

• Restricted Entitlements – Enables to ability to restrict user access to desktop pools based on the connection server being used for access. With connection servers being deployed across different networks, IT organizations can enforce access based on the user’s location. Depending on how the connection server is configured a group of users can be either permitted or denied access to their virtual desktop according to the connection server being used for access.

In addition to PCoIP VMware View 4 supports ALP, RDP and RGS protocols.  Sadly Offline Desktop is still an experimental feature as well as Windows 7 host and guest support.

For additional details and features available in VMware View 4 please see the release notes: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/view_pubs.html

Update: VMware View 4 is still not available for download as of the writing of this post, I really expect to see this within the next week or two.  To be notified when the download is available you can sign up for the evaluation at https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=default

On a side note, for those of you that haven’t noticed, when you visit the VMware website you’ll now be greeted with the new VMware branding as well as a new color scheme….which I’m not sure if I like.

Posted under View