Patrick Rouse, Sales Engineer at Quest Software, wrote up a blog post to announce that their Provision Networks division has shipped the new version of the company’s cross-platform VDI connection broker, Virtual Access Suite (VAS) 5.10. The 5.9 version was released to the public in December of 2007, and had one service pack, so all the following features are new to version 5.10:
Web Portal – Web-IT:
- Web-IT migrated to ASP.Net 1.1 to ASP.Net 2.0
- Web-IT config files migrated from text to XML files to support future automation
- Web-IT Integration With Juniper Secure Access
- Smart Card login support
Clients:
- Ticketing – Secure tickets will be issued per connection request, obviating the need to embed hashed user credentials inside .pit connection files
- Enhanced Multi-monitor support
- Updated Linux and Java Clients
- PXE Boot Linux Client
- LiveCD Linux Client
- All AppPortal Client settings can be stored in a single configuration file
- Java Client fully supported via Secure Gateway
Connection Broker & Management Console:
- Support for Microsoft Hyper-V
- Support for Virtual Iron 4.3.x
- Dynamic Computer Group Auto-expansion – Auto Provisioning of new computers
- Server Provisioning
- Delete computers that have not been used in a specified number of days
- Realtime enumeration of running processes on Managed Computers
- Termination of running processes on Managed Computers.
- Power Management of ACPI and WoL (Wake on LAN) capable computers and servers
- MSI Package Deployment to Computer Groups or Managed Computers and servers
- Disable/Enable Computer Groups or Managed Computers during maintenance cycles
- Unique Computer names enforced across Desktop Groups and Data Centers
- Display Realtime License Usage
- Retrieval and display of VM Template Sizes
- Wizard Driven Managed Desktop creation
- Streamlined Softgrid Integration
- Option to bypass proxy settings for Console to Broker communication
- Verification of sufficient disk space on target storage when provisioning servers or desktops.
Task Automation for Power Management (multiple recurrence options or single instance):
- Power Off
- Power On
- Reset
- Resume – for VMware and Hyper-V
- Standby – for ACPI & WoL Devices
- Suspend -for VMware and Hyper-V
- Wakeup – for ACPI & WoL Devices
Task Automation for Operating System operations (multiple recurrence options or single instance):
- Log off user
- Reset Session
- Restart O/S
- Shutdown O/S
Task Automation for Virtual machines (multiple recurrence options or single instance):
- Delete VM
- Delete VM not accessed in a specified number of days
Task Automation for Miscellaneous Tasks (multiple recurrence options or single instance):
- Copy file to computer
- Enable/Disable Computer
- Initialize Computer
- Run Program/Script on Computer
Task Automation for MSI Packages (multiple recurrence options or single instance):
- Install MSI Package
- Update MSI Package
- Uninstall MSI Package
Setup Program:
- Wizard-based setup program to automate database creation, upgrade, and management of VMware trust store and Virtual Iron jar libraries
- Terminal Servers and Connection Brokers are automatically added to the Provision Farm in the Provision Management Console.
Experience Optimization Pack:
- Bi-directional Audio – Microphone Redirection
- Local Text Echo – Latency Masking for typing over latent networks
- Multi-media Redirection – seamlessly redirects multi-media content to the client CODEC for local playback. – This will be released as a separate 5.10 update, as it has not been released from QA yet.