VMware View 5.1 Announced

On May 2, 2012, VMware launched several new and updated products that comprise the End-User Computing Solutions. These products include Horizon Application Manager 1.5, VMware Project Octopus, VMware Zimbra 7.2, vCenter Operations for VMware View, and VMware View 5.1. All of these products together help IT take the next evolutionary step in the Post-PC era. Clearpath Solutions Group will be breaking down the full solution set for you, but today we want to focus on the first building block of the new End-User computing environment – VMware View 5.1. In VMware View 5.1, VMware introduced several new features that further reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) associated with deploying a virtual desktop infrastructure, promising increased performance with lower hardware costs, and simplified migration of desktops and user data into your company’s desktop computing cloud. A host of new storage-centric features introduced in VMware View 5.1 are the following:

• VMware View Storage Accelerator – provides a ‘Content Based Read Cache’ for commonly read storage blocks. This will improve storage performance of Linked Clone desktops while reducing storage costs.

• NFS Scaling – More vSphere ESXi hosts (up to 32) can be combined in a cluster connected to NFS storage to increase scalability of your virtual desktop cloud.

• View Composer API for Array Integration (VCAI) – VCAI leverages native NFS capabilities to offload storage operations in a VMware View environment to the storage array.

• Ability to place View Disposable Disks on datastores separate from View Linked Clone disks – this allows administrators to contain Linked Clone disk growth without consuming high-tier disk for disposable data.

Additional features introduced in this release improve both the View IT administrator and end-user experience. These enhancements include:

• View Persona Management – Extended to physical desktops, simplifying the process of migrating user profile data from physical XP desktops to virtual Windows 7 desktops.

• VMware vCenter Operations for VMware View – Automated deep insight into VMware View performance metrics with automated self-learning and alerting.

• View Media Service – Ability to connect more types of peripherals to the View Desktop, adding multi-monitor support to View Local Mode.

• New VMware View Clients – Updated versions of View clients will be made available for Mac, Windows, Linux, thin/zero clients, Apple iPad, Android, and Amazon Kindle Fire tablets. These new clients will further improve the user experience with optimized PCoIP support.

• RADIUS Support – Enables more 2-factor authentication options.

• View Administrator enhancements provide increased performance, simplified AD-object creation, and scalability for tens-of-thousands of View desktops.

• View Composer component can be installed separate from vCenter, providing greater scalability and design choices for your View environment.

Stay tuned to the Clearpath Blog for more information on how these new features will help you realize improved IT operational efficiency while delivering optimized desktops services to users.