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VMware Releases VMware View 3 For Virtual Desktop Environments

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VMware today announced the general availability of VMware View 3. With VMware View 3, IT organizations can “decouple” a desktop from specific physical devices or locations to create a personalized view of a user’s desktop, applications, and data – called “myView” – that is securely accessible from almost any device, at any time. By hosting these virtual desktop images in the datacenter using the industry-leading virtualization and management platform, VMware Infrastructure 3, VMware View 3 enables IT personnel to provision and manage thousands of virtual desktops simply, securely, and with substantially lower operating costs.

VMware View 3 is a major step in VMware’s vClient Initiative, announced at VMworld 2008 in September, to solve the “desktop dilemma.” As described by VMware President and CEO Paul Maritz, the desktop dilemma is the business choice of whether to provide thick or thin clients for employees. Thick clients, or fully loaded PCs, give employees a rich set of applications in their desktop environment, but are a management nightmare because applications can be distributed across thousands of PCs that must be provisioned, updated, patched and secured individually.

Thin clients are cheaper, more secure, and more cost-effective to manage, but traditionally have not been able to deliver the richness, flexibility, or compatibility of a thick client. Most businesses provide thin clients only for employees such as call center staff who can be productive in a more stripped-down environment. VMware View 3 solves this dilemma by combining the benefits of both approaches – delivering rich, personalized virtual desktops to any device (whether thick or thin), while simplifying management and securing endpoints with virtual desktops hosted in the datacenter.

VMware View 3 is a family of products available in two editions:

  • VMware View 3, Enterprise Edition: includes VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition and VMware View Manager 3, a flexible desktop management server enabling IT administrators to quickly provision and tightly control user access.
  • VMware View 3, Premier Edition: includes VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition, VMware View Manager 3, VMware ThinApp for agentless application virtualization and VMware View Composer, a new product that enables IT staff to create multiple virtual desktops from a single image, increasing the speed of provisioning desktops and reducing storage requirements.

With the following new products and technologies, VMware View 3 is the only enterprise-class solution that delivers simple, end-to-end management of virtual desktops and virtual applications from the datacenter to the client:

  • VMware View Composer is a new product that uses Linked Clone technology to create virtual desktops rapidly from a master image while consuming up to 70 percent less storage space. Automated image preparation and provisioning take only seconds and are centrally controlled by View Manager. In addition, View Composer can reduce management costs by enabling IT to update thousands of individual virtual desktops by simply updating the master image with a patch or application update and then applying the changes to each desktop cloned from the master image. View Composer provides this one-to-many image updating while preserving user data, settings, and preferences so patching is seamless to end users.
  • VMware ThinApp is bundled with VMware View 3 to enable simplified application packaging and deployment to a virtual desktop environment. ThinApp and View Composer work together to provide streamlined virtual desktop image creation and updating. ThinApp enables applications to run independently of the host operating system version or patch level. This simplifies updating and patching applications, and provides additional storage reduction for virtual desktops by centralizing and compressing applications. ThinApp’s unique architecture does not require an agent on the user’s desktop, a major advantage compared to other techniques for virtualization applications.
  • Offline Desktop, an experimental feature, provides the flexibility to intelligently and securely move virtual desktops between the datacenter and a local laptop or desktop, increasing user productivity while providing secure mobility. Users can “check out” a virtual desktop onto an ordinary PC, such as a laptop, run the virtual desktop locally and then check it back in to the datacenter. Offline Desktop allows a user to keep using his virtual desktop when no network is available, or simply to take advantage of local resources for the best virtual desktop user experience available.
  • Unified Access, a new feature of VMware View Manager 3, provides desktop administrators with a single management platform for multiple types of sessions. VMware View Manager 3 connects to desktop environments hosted on VMware Infrastructure, or user sessions running on Windows Terminal Servers or even physical PCs such as a blade PC. Individuals have a single point of access to seamlessly connect to their desktop environment, while administrators have a single point of administration.
  • Virtual Printing provides end users the ability to print to any local or network printer without installing specific printer drivers. Virtual Printing technology provides compression for print jobs and auto detection of local printers from the client. This eliminates printer driver issues and the need for printer configuration. End users get high quality printing with enhanced performance across the WAN.
  • Multimedia Redirection improves the user experience with rich multimedia playback capabilities. The multimedia processing tasks are intelligently redirected from the server to the end user device where the multimedia stream is decoded, taking advantage of the local processing power.

VMware View 3 is available immediately through VMware sales and the company’s extensive network of OEM partners and more than 20,000 channel partners. VMware View 3 Enterprise Edition is priced at $150 per concurrent connection and the VMware View 3 Premier Edition is priced at $250 per concurrent connection.

VDIworks2Go, Because Mobile Workers Need Virtual Desktops Too

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VDIworks today introduced VDIworks2Go, a software solution that helps the mobile workforce capitalize on the use of virtual desktops. With VDIworks2Go, workers access a centralized virtual desktop from their laptop, and then can take it with them, allowing them to fully benefit from the security, total cost of ownership and management advantages presented by a centralized desktop computing infrastructure on the go.

VDIworks2Go users will be able to select either “disconnected” or “hosted” modes. The disconnected mode will stream the virtual machine onto the laptop so that the user can leave the office and take their virtual desktop with them.
VDIworks2Go will be available in late Q4 2008 and will be priced on a per-seat basis. Laptops equipped with VDIworks2Go must operate a processor with 1.6GHZ or higher of processing power, must contain 2GB or more of RAM, and should contain 6-8 GB of free storage to host a typical VM.

NComputing Wins Massive Contract in India

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NComputing, provider of low-cost computing solutions, today announced that it was chosen to supply a massive 5,000-school educational computing initiative in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, per VentureBeat. The initiative will provide computing access to 1.8 million children throughout the state. The win marks the largest single deployment of NComputing’s solution in India.

By leveraging NComputing, the government expects to save $20 million in up-front and ongoing costs. The government will also use 90% less electricity compared to a traditional all-PC solution.

The NComputing solution is based on a simple fact: today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications only use a small fraction of the computer’s capacity. NComputing technology creates multiple virtual desktops on a single PC so that many users can tap the unused capacity and share it as if each person had their own computer. Andhra Pradesh chose the NComputing X300 solution, which enables up to seven users to simultaneously share one PC.

The computing labs will be used to teach computer skills and office productivity (spreadsheets, word processing) as well as subjects like reading and math. The entire system will run on the Microsoft Windows Server operating system and use Microsoft Office Suite.

The project is based on an innovative outsourcing model. The Andhra Pradesh government will outsource the entire project for five years to leading educational IT companies, including Educomp, Everonn, NIIT, and Social Computers. The model is referred to as Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) and requires the companies to install, staff, and manage the labs. This arrangement helps ensure that the labs are installed quickly and performance benchmarks are met. The five-year period also enables school staff to develop their own competencies in managing the labs and computer-aided teaching.

NComputing’s technology is used by 20,000 organizations in more than 90 countries. In the United States, NComputing has been deployed by over 4,000 school districts in classrooms, computer labs, and libraries. Although smaller in scale than Andhra Pradesh, school districts in North America face many of the same challenges including tight budgets, demand for wider computing access, limited IT support staff, and a desire to use “green” technology.

NComputing

Avnet Technology Solutions Introduces Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Solution, Based on VMware Technology

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Avnet Technology Solutions, an operating group of Avnet, today announced a comprehensive solution to assist partners in targeting the emerging virtual desktop market in the US and Canada. Avnet Technology Solutions’ new solution combines VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) software with the services and enablement resources needed to develop market expertise and effectively implement virtual desktop environments. Partners can use virtual desktop solutions to help their customers improve manageability, increase control and enhance the security of their enterprise desktops. The centralization of desktop management through virtualization also helps companies more effectively leverage their IT resources.

Avnet’s new solution is based on VMware VDI, which includes VMware Virtual Desktop Manager and provides simplified management and secure provisioning of virtual desktops and manages user access to the virtual desktops from a wide range of devices such as Windows, Linux and Mac computers, and thin clients. By deploying the VMware platform, partners can extend business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities to their customers’ desktops and streamline desktop management to reduce operating costs, increase control and deliver complete desktop environments with greater application compatibility.

Ericom Adds VDI support for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers

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After announcing support for Oracle VM last May, Ericom has now added VDI support for with its Parallels Virtuozzo with its PowerTerm WebConnect software solution.

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers is an OS-level server virtualization technology that partitions the underlying operating system into multiple isolated containers, so that many workloads or virtual desktops can be run simultaneously on the same physical box.

Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect enables organizations to centrally manage and deploy virtual desktops based on Parallels Virtuozzo Containers from within the datacenter and hosting facilities – reducing the cost and complexity of traditional desktop PC management. As a comprehensive solution for virtualized desktop environments, Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect increases security and desktop manageability, enables business continuity implementations, and provides a superior, customizable desktop experience.

For PowerTerm WebConnect licensing, Ericom offers both perpetual licensing for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers on-premise implementations and subscription licensing for Parallels Virtuozzo Containers based hosting environments.

Ericom Software

VDIworks Virtual Desktop Platform 1.2 To Support HP RGS Protocol

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VDIworks today announced that the latest release of VDIworks’ Virtual Desktop Platform (VDP), version 1.2, will provide connection brokering and management for the HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) protocol. This integrated offering will allow customers to leverage VDIworks’ virtual desktop management capabilities and HP’s RGS protocol to enable the highest grade visual experience possible in a virtualized environment.

While desktop virtualization solutions have focused primarily on the hypervisor back-end, the end-user experience has not achieved parity with what most users expect from a PC. HP’s RGS protocol provides extremely high-speed transmission of multimedia content from a virtual machine to a remote thin client. VDIworks’ VDP will now be able to discover RGS-enabled devices and provide connection brokering as well as additional management services for HP hardware running RGS. VDP supports all popular hypervisors, including Microsoft Hyper-V, Virtual Server, Xen and VMware ESX. HP and VDIworks will continue to work together to improve the performance and feature-set of the newly announced solution.
VDIworks