Product Releases

64TB VMDKs? Yes we can.

August 26, 2013 by Josh Townsend 1 Comment

Here’s a tasty tidbit for you – in the just announced vSphere 5.5, we can now create 64TB VMDK files. While much of vSphere 5.5 offers a 2x increase in configuration maximums over vSphere 5.1, the increase in VMDK size is a whopping 32x. (It may actually be a bit less – ~~I’m not sure if the -512B caveat comes into play on the virtual disk size for vSphere 5.5. I didn’t think to test this out in the lab during my beta testing…~~ the max size is actually 62.9TB as space is reserved in the containing VMFS for snapshots, metadata, etc.).

Now just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I wrote a post a couple months ago about large volume support in vSphere; the arguments I made in my previous post are still valid now. Simple things, like this: a 64TB VMDK restoration would be a heck of a long process in the event of a disaster, and presents a pretty large single point of failure.

While the wisdom of configuring a 64TB VMDK is questionable for many workloads, I do think that the ability to create such a behemoth displays the ever increasing capabilities of the vmkernel and VMFS. Hopefully this means that heap size limitations (https://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004424) are a thing of the past (I haven’t done an in-place upgrade from 5.1 to 5.5, so I don’t know if the VMFS3.MinHeapSizeMB option is automatically adjusted to support more/larger VMDKs – something else I’ll have to test out when I get home from VMworld I guess).

Final thought – Larger than 2TB VMDKs will also allow us to stop using RDMs for large volume support. This helps pave the way for pure NFS environments (RDMs are a block option) and opens the doors for vVol, vSAN, and vFlash support for all of our virtual (software defined) storage.

Going Nostradamus Style on VMworld 2013

August 25, 2013 by Josh Townsend Leave a Comment

It’s hard to believe that VMworld 2013 is upon us. Before last year’s show I wrote a couple posts on my predictions for VMworld 2012 (here and here). A good number of my predictions were correct on new products, services, and overall direction for VMware. Emboldened by my future telling success, I thought I would try to do the same this year. So without further ado, here’s what I see coming at VMworld 2013, based on the VMworld 2013 Content Catalog, earlier announcements, rumors, social media hints, and pure conjecture.

A Narrowed Focus

First prediction: we’ll see a narrowing of focus for VMware. A year into the Pat Gelsinger era, we’ve already seen the divestiture of several VMware assets not directly related to the core missions of VMware. Under Gelsinger, the core areas of focus for VMware are the following:

IT self-service and the VMware Journey – Empower IT with a cost-effective, flexible infrastructure that enables greater agility, personalization and IT as a service (ITaaS).
Software-defined Data Center – Deliver innovations in networking, security, storage and management as powerful as those we led – and continue to lead – in server and desktop virtualization, in simple-to-buy-and-use VMware vCloud Suite.
Hybrid cloud – Deliver a compelling set of cloudservices that enable organizations to run any workload, anywhere – onsite or offsite, as they choose.
End-user computing – Deliver a virtual workspace for both existing PC environments and emerging mobile devices in a secure enterprise environment.
Heterogeneous platform support – Remove the complexity of mixed environments by providing a common, logical layer of software to manage.

We’ll certainly hear a reinforcement of these core concepts, as well as some explanation of why some of the VMware product portfolio was shed (to make room for greater focus on the core, no doubt). The products that have been divested over the past year include:

SlideRocket
Zimbra
Shavlik
WaveMaker
GemStone/S

We also saw the transfer of several other assets (including GemFire, SQLFire, vFabric, Cloud Foundry, RabbitMQ, SpringSource) to a new joint EMC-VMware initiative called Pivotal, led by previous VMware CEO Paul Maritz. The shifting of this set of intellectual property allows VMware to better focus on their core mission while keeping new and emerging big data, web services and *aaS technologies in the family.

New and Improved Products and Services – Cloud Infrastructure

I suspect that we’ll hear some talk of how some of the Pivotal technologies will be spun back into products like the VMware vCloud Hybrid Service (announced earlier this year). This will offer expanded cloud/web services (as opposed to just running VMs somewhere else) in vCHS, enabling better competition with Amazon Web Services. I expect to hear more about running Platform as a Service (PaaS) in vCHS (PHC5208 – Developer Services on vCloud Hybrid Services) as well as Object Storage as a Service in vCHS ( PHC5734 – VMware Hybrid Cloud – An Introduction to Object Store). I’m curious to learn if this Object Storage Service will be based on EMC’s Vipre, OpenStack Swift, a Pivotal developed offering, or some combo of all of the above. I hope this is all done in the context of expanding options and improving multi-cloud/hybrid-cloud management for customers, and not in a competitive ‘if a workload is deployed to Amazon we all lose‘ tone. AWS is ahead in offering cloud web services. VMware is top dog in running VMs. Expanding vCHS will help VMware compete with Amazon’s offerings, but a customer-first approach to supporting hybrid/multi-cloud deployments is critical to VMware’s success in leading hybrid cloud solutions, just like they’ve led private cloud solutions. Gartner’s Chris Wolf nailed it in his article here: https://blogs.gartner.com/chris-wolf/2013/08/19/vmworld-2013-will-vmware-regain-its-voice/. I truly believe that by tightening its focus, executing with excellence, and engaging the community and ecosystem VMware can maintain and extend its leadership in an evolving hybrid cloud marketplace.

VMworld is the traditional time for announcing a new release of vSphere. This year is no different – we’ll definitely see a new revision of vSphere this year. Rumors and leaks place the version at 5.5, breaking with the major release (4.0, 5.0) one year and a point release (4.1, 5.1) the next year. This will be the first .5 release since ESX 3.5 in December 2007. With a .5 release I wouldn’t expect a ton of new functionality, but a general increase in scalability, stability, and broadening of the platform with the integration of other new products and services. For example, we’ve heard about vVols for a couple years – vSphere 5.5 may finally provide the underlying platform to support vVols (STO7449 – Tech Preview: Accelerating data operations Using VMware VVols and Storage Profile Based Management). We’ll also see improvements in core vSphere automation – Network DRS and predictive DRS migrations are coming, as are software defined storage elements (vSphere Flash Caching, vSAN and technology from the Virsto acquisition). The storage enhancements have the potential to be disruptive to some of the newer flash-cache vendors like PernixData, ProximalData, SanDisk FlashSoft, EMC XtremSW, OCZ VXL, Fusion-IO, IBM FlashCache, etc. We’ll also get at least ‘Tech Preview’ treatment of multi-vCPU support for Fault Tolerance (BCO5065 – VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance for Multiprocessor Virtual Machines – Technical Preview).

I think this is a long shot, but a boy can dream – a radical restructuring of vSphere licensing to accompany the vCloud Suite announced last year. I briefly laid out what this could look like last month in my Multipathing Support in vSphere Standard Edition post. I suggested that vSphere Enterprise Plus be the only vSphere edition offered, then build on that with a vCloud Suite with automation bundle (vSphere, SRM, vCloud & vCOps), and a Hybrid Cloud Suite that adds vCloud Automation Center (vCAC), vFabric, and maybe even a small amount of vCloud Hybrid Service credits. This would make purchasing much simpler, pushing customers towards more automation and hybrid offerings.

The Nicira acquisition is taking off under the VMware umbrella. Not only is NVP getting press and content catalog coverage, but VMware’s NSX Network Virtualization (https://blogs.vmware.com/vmware/2013/03/vmware-nsx-network-virtualization.html) will be touted as a critical technology in enabling the hybrid cloud. There are a ton of sessions at VMworld 2013 on NVP and NSX. I’ll be interested to see how these are folded into core product offerings.

End User Compute

The VMworld Content Catalog has some teasers on what to expect around the Horizon End User Computing products. I don’t anticipate a ton of announcements in EUC – they tend to come around VMware’s Partner Exchange Conference in the first quarter. That said, watch for improvements to ThinApp (EUC4629 – ThinApp 101 and what’s new in ThinApp next version), some new Mirage functionality (Windows 8 support?), and small improvements to Horizon Workspace and View. Finally, some cool announcements around VMware’s EUC product set within vCloud Hybrid Service (EUC7370-S – The Software-Defined Data Center Meets End User Computer) are coming. This is exciting as it opens the door to better Desktop-as-a-Service offerings, as well as Desktop-Disaster-Recovery options. A tweet from VMware CTO for EUC Scott Davis suggested that EUC7370-S will have some exciting announcements on Monday night before press releases for the announcements drop on Tuesday, so keep an eye out if you want to be the first to know.

Management & Automation

There’s a bunch going on here – vCenter Operations Manager updates, DevOps tools (Puppet in particular) and how they tie into hybrid cloud management (including vCHS), and hopefully some content on the vCloud Automation Center software (although the VMworld Content Catalog is very lacking around this).

Community

For those not able to make to to San Francsico this year, hook yourself up to the VMware vExpert feeds and EMC Elect feeds – blogs, Twitter, G+. The Clearpath team will be posting updates on the Clearpath Blog during and after the show, so subscribe to updates there too. There’ll be a ton of content to ingest. Follow up with your local VMware User Group for post-VMworld updates and discounted/free access to recorded VMworld sessions through the VMUG Advantage program (this was offered last year – hopefully to be repeated this year).

I’m more excited for VMworld this year than I have been over the several past years. The industry is at the edge of another big wave in innovation – hybrid cloud management, automation, converged compute, flash-based storage (any guesses on how many new flash/hybrid storage vendors we’ll see at VMworld 2013? I’m guessing at least 30)…. I’m hoping this week will help me re-focus on the future so I can better steer my company, customers and own career in the right direction.

Stay tuned for more updates on VMtoday throughout the week – it’s gonna be fun!

VMware Product Updates – April 2013

May 7, 2013 by Josh Townsend Leave a Comment

VMware has released updates to several products over the past couple weeks. Many of the updates take the version 5.1 products announced at VMworld 2012 to Update 1 (i.e. the first major service pack). The updates, spanning vSphere (ESXi and vCenter), vCloud Director, vCenter Operations, vCenter Orchestrator, vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM), vSphere Data Protection, and the vSphere Storage Appliance, include bug fixes, security fixes, and functionality changes. Here’s what you need to know about the updates, including a few upgrade bugs that you need to know about before you pull the upgrade trigger.

ESXi 5.1 Update 1

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1 Update 1 contains some functionality changes, a bunch of bug fixes, and some administrative changes.

First, ESXi support for several guest operating systems will be deprecated after this release. Those guest OSs include:

Windows NT
All 16-bit Windows and DOS releases (Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows 3.1)
Debian 4.0 and 5.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1
SUSE Linux Enterprise 8
SUSE Linux Enterprise 9 prior to SP4
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 prior to SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Prior to SP1
Ubuntu releases 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10 and 10.10
All releases of Novell Netware
All releases of IBM OS/2
Guest customization of Windows 2000 will also be deprecated in releases after Update 1, but running Windows 2000 guests will still be supported for a bit longer.

In ESXi 5.1 U1, support for certain host server CPU models will be eliminated with the requirement of SAHF and LAHF support on the CPU. While most processors produced after 2006 will support these instruction sets, it is possible that your test/dev or home labs could not run ESXi. For more on LAHF/SAHF, read here: https://vsphere-land.com/news/what-is-sahf-and-lahf-and-why-do-i-need-it-to-install-vsphere-51.html.

Fixes and resolved issues in ESXi 5.1 U1 include improved SNMP trap handling, better support for Mac OS X VMs running hardware version 9, purple screen and guest blue screen fixes, a unicast flooding condition with long running vMotion operations, improved Host Profiles functionality, and improved ESXi Upgrades.

Added functionality in Update 1 includes Component-based logging to enhance log detail for simplified troubleshooting, and an increased VMFS Heap size to allow ESXi hosts to address more than 60TB of open files on VMFS5 (more on that in this post: https://vmtoday.com/2013/04/is-spanning-vmdks-using-windows-dynamic-disks-a-good-idea/).

You can find the release notes for ESXi 5.1 Update 1 here: https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-esxi-51u1-release-notes.html

vCenter 5.1 Update 1

vCenter Server 5.1 Update 1 supports installation on Windows Server 2012 with SQL Server 2012 and 2008 R2.

Guest customization of Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Ubuntu 12.04, and RHEL 5.9 are no also supported.

This release (release notes here: https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-vcenter-server-51u1-release-notes.html) has a ton of bug fixes for everything from a minor VMs display a red warning icon in the VM inventory list when there is no alarm triggered, to more substantial issues like vCenter and SSO services failing to start.

There is a known issue with this release that causes account lockouts when a vCenter SSO enabled user who is in many domain groups attempts to log in. If you might be in this situation, hold off on the upgrade until VMware releases a fix. More on the issue here: https://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2013/04/alert-login-issue-after-updating-to-vcenter-5-1-update-1.html

If you are planning to upgrade to vSphere (ESXi and vCenter) 5.1 Update1, VMware has published a knowledgebase article at https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2037630 that covers the complete upgrade sequence and product compatibility. Not all solutions are compatible with the new 5.1 Update 1 release. VMware View 5.1.x, for example, is not compatible with vSphere 5.1 Update 1. If you run Horizon View and want to go to vSphere 5.1 Update 1, you’ll have to first update View to v5.2 You should also review the VMware Compatibility Matrix at https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php and the Product Interoperability Matrix at https://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php to verify that your hardware and VMware software elements are compatible with this release. If you run into problems or have questions, drop us a comment and we’ll be happy to help!

vCloud Director 5.1.2

vCloud Director was rev’d to version 5.1.2. Among the functional changes in vCloud Director 5.1.2 are:

Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 databases
Support for guest customization of Microsoft Windows Server 2012
vCloud Director can now be installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.3
Enhancements to the role based permissions to allow administrators to grant vCloud users rights for working with vApp snapshots (creating, reverting and removing).
Changes to resource allocation models for Organization Virtual Datacenters to control how elastic Allocation Policies function. See this post for more information on this topic: https://fojta.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/allocation-pool-organization-vdc-changes-in-vcloud-director-5-1-2/.

Bug fixes in 5.1.2 include database error fixes, networking fixes, and virtual machine/vApp. Full release notes for vCloud Director 5.1.2 can be found here: https://www.vmware.com/support/vcd/doc/rel_notes_vcloud_director_512.html.

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.3

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.3 provides a distributed shared storage solution that abstracts the computing and internal hard disk resources of two or three ESXi hosts to form a VSA cluster. The VSA cluster enables vSphere High Availability and vSphere vMotion.

If you are running VSA and upgrade to vCenter 5.1 Update 1, you must upgrade your VSA to 5.1.3 due to know compatibility issues. Beyond making VSA compatible with vSphere 5.1 U1, VSA 5.1.3 adds functionality that improves performance and scalability of the solution.

Notable improvements include the ability to add storage capacity of an existing VSA cluster, the ability to manage multiple VSA clusters from a single vCenter, and the ability to install VSA on hosts that already have VMs running on their local storage.

Release notes for vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.3 can be found here: https://www.vmware.com/support/vsa/doc/vsphere-storage-appliance-513-release-notes.html

vSphere Data Protection (VDP) Version 5.1.10

vSphere Data Protection is VMware’s built-in full VM backup solution, based on EMC Avamar technology. This release includes a bunch of usability improvements, with additional options presented for backup and restore operations, as well as additional options for VM configuration post-restore (connect the NIC, auto power on, etc.).

VDP 5.1.10 also includes a migration utility that automates the process of moving from the old vSphere Data Recovery (vDR) solution if you happen to be running that.

You can find the full release notes here: https://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdp_5110_releasenotes.html

VMware vCenter Orchestrator 5.1 Update 1

vCenter Orchestrator is a automation tool that allows administrators to develop complex workflows for vSphere, as well as other systems. Orchestrator is included with vCenter Server. Orchestrator automates deployment and customization of VMs, as well as additional tasks like creating VMFS datastores, adding VMs to Active Directory, and updating third-party change management databases. VCO is an incredibly powerful tool with hundreds of built-in workflows to get you started.

If you want to learn more about VCO, check out the documentation here: https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/orchestrator_pubs.html

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1.1 & vSphere Replication 5.1.1

SRM 5.1.1 and VR both received minor updates. While no new functionality was introduced in these releases, both include a host of stability and performance improvements. Among the fixes are:

SRM 5.1.1 also includes logic that allows upgrades from SRM 5.0.2 – there was previously no logic written into the code to support upgrades.
Recovery of a Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller protected by VR is fixed.

Release notes for SRM 5.1.1 are here: https://www.vmware.com/support/srm/srm-releasenotes-5-1-1.html

Release notes for VR 5.1.1 are here: https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-replication-511-release-notes.html

VMware vCenter Operations 5.7

Jason Shiplett covered the release of vCenter Operations (vCOps) 5.7 in an earlier blog post here: https://blog.shiplett.org/vcenter-operations-manager-5-7-whats-new-and-how-to-upgrade/. vCOps 5.7 includes new views, policies, and improved usability. Read Jason’s post for more information on vCenter Operations 5.6.

VMware Horizon General Availability – Licensing and Promotions!

March 7, 2013 by Josh Townsend 2 Comments

VMware Horizon Suite and all of the components that make up the suite were made Generally Available (GA) on Monday (March 4, 2013). VMware Horizon View 5.2, VMware Horizon Mirage 4.0, and VMware Horizon Workspace 1.0 versions are available as stand-alone products or all bundled into the Horizon Suite. This is an exciting set of releases from VMware. I wrote a summary of the releases last week if you don’t yet know what is included in the upgrades and new products.

With GA came information on pricing and licensing for individual products and for the Horizon Suite, which includes all of these components under one SKU. With the full Horizon Suite licensing, IT gains a comprehensive set of tools to manage endpoints and provide users with increased levels of service and availability.

Here’s a breakdown of which components are included in the currently available licensing bundles:

	Horizon View Add-on	Horizon View Add-on to Bundle	Horizon View Bundle	Horizon Mirage Migration License (6mos)	Horizon Mirage Migration to Full	Horizon Mirage	Horizon Workspace	Horizon Suite
VMware vSphere Desktop		x	x					x
VMware vCenter Server		x	x					x
VMware Horizon View Manager	x		x					x
VMware Horizon View Composer	x		x					x
VMware Horizon Persona Management	x		x					x
Horizon View Client with Local Mode	x		x					x
vShield Endpoint	x		x					x
VMware ThinApp	x		x		x	x	x	x
VMware Horizon Mirage Image Management				x**	x	x		x
VMware Horizon Workspace							x	x
VMware Fusion Professional (Fusion and Workstation)					x	x		x
VMware Workstation for Windows	x		x					x*
VMware Horizon Mobile							x	x
vCenter Operations Manager for View***	X^***	X^***	X^***					X^***

*Included in VMware Fusion Professional

** For use in Windows version migrations only during 6 month license period, no end-point backup or other management tasks

*** Available a la carte.

VMware is offering special promotional pricing for existing customers with VMware View Premier Bundle licensing to upgrade to the full Horizon Suite at 49% off. The upgrade to the full Horizon Suite adds Horizon Workspace and Horizon Mirage to your View licensing. Existing View Premier per-concurrent-user licensing is exchanged for the Horizon Suite per-named-user licensing. The conversion allows 1 View per-concurrent-user license to be exchanged for 2 named user licenses. This could double the number of users that your current licensing can accommodate if your usage of View is near or at your per-concurrent-user license count, giving you room to grow! This is a limited time offer, so contact Clearpath today to get the process started.

VMware has also moved several products to End of Availability (EOA) status, meaning that you’ll no longer be able to buy them. EOA products include VMware View Enterprise Edition, VMware ThinApp, and Horizon Application Manager. If you own these products, there are upgrade paths to non-EOA products. For customers who hold active Support and Subscription (SNS) for standalone ThinApp licensing, VMware View Enterprise Edition licenses (Add-on and Bundle), and Horizon Application Manager, the upgrade paths are as follows:

For customers with VMware View Enterprise with active SNS, you can upgrade from View Enterprise Bundle to VMware Horizon View (formerly View Premier). Customers with View Enterprise Add-on can upgrade to either Horizon View Add-on or Horizon View Bundle. For customers with VMware Horizon Application Manager with active SNS, there may be a free upgrade path available to Horizon Workspace. Contact Clearpath today to learn if your licensing qualifies for a free upgrade.

P.S. VMware has extended the offer for a free upgrade from vSphere Enterprise Plus to the new vCloud Suite Standard licensing until March 15, 2013. VMware vCloud Suite Standard includes vSphere, vCloud Director, and vCloud Networking and Security. If you are interested in automating and securing your VMware infrastructure with the power of vCloud Director and vCloud Networking and Security don’t wait on this deal. There is a $1 per socket upgrade charge on this, so you’ll have to work with Clearpath to get the upgrade completed before the deadline. I have more details on the Free vCloud Suite Promotion here.

VMware End-User Computing Announcements

February 28, 2013 by Josh Townsend

VMware announced this week the launch of several new products in the growing portfolio of End-User Computing (EUC) solutions, under the VMware Horizon family of products. The expansion of EUC products across the industry is being fueled by increasing demands for IT solutions for business users to be delivered ‘as-a-service’, as well as by the growing trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). The ability of technology departments to deliver applications, user data, and desktop as a service, while maintaining user mobility and freedom must be balanced against the need to standardize and secure delivery of corporate information assets. That’s just what these new releases aim for.

First up is VMware Horizon View 5.2. View has been a VMware offering for some time, and is now falling under the Horizon name. View is VMware’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution. View provides centralized execution of Windows desktops running on VMware vSphere in the datacenter. With View, IT can deliver desktop as a service by leveraging View’s ability to rapidly deploy standardized desktops to business users. New in View 5.2 is support for Windows 8 desktops, hardware accelerated 3D graphics to support applications like AutoCAD, RevIt, and Microstation, greater scalability by allowing clusters of up to 32 ESXi hosts using VMFS, PCoIP enhancements, and clientless HTML5 access to View desktops. In addition, View 5.2 desktops can now take advantage of the new vSphere 5.1 Space Efficient (SE) Sparse disk format to reclaim whitespace within user desktops for greater efficiency. Many other small features were added to View 5.2, including an improved administration console, syslog support, multi-touch gesture-based control of View desktops for touch-based devices, and faster provisioning of desktops through View Composer. While virtual desktops can be a great solution for many types of users, it is not a perfect fit for frequently offline mobile users, power users who require a great deal of freedom in customizing their PC experience, or where legacy hardware or software demands a traditional PC.

To help address these use cases, VMware has announced the launch of Horizon Mirage 4.0. Mirage is an endpoint centralization and layering solution aimed at providing greater flexibility and manageability of corporate PC’s. Centralization capabilities allow the endpoint state, including OS, departmental applications, user-installed apps, and user data to be maintained in a central repository, providing near-CDP of the entire endpoint. Layering breaks out the elements of a desktop state, from what has traditionally been either a monolithic image or an unmanaged endpoint, into individually managed layers including OS, driver, departmental application, user applications, and user data. Each layer is centralized and easily updated, replaced, or migrated in real-time with little to no user impact. With layering and centralization combined, some very interesting use cases emerge beyond simple management and patching.

For example, total endpoint centralization provides the ability to move a user’s entire endpoint state from a traditional PC to a VMware Horizon View based desktop by simply changing the driver layer from the physical endpoint to a VM Hardware set of drivers. By managing the operating system layer, we can swap out the OS while leaving applications and user data intact. This allows seamless migrations from an older operating system such as Windows XP to a newer OS like Windows 7. By layering and centralizing the user data layer, IT can backup and allow user restoration of user data on dispersed endpoints. Horizon View and Mirage are in many ways about giving IT more control of endpoints, while simplifying administration and improving quality of service to our users. But with the commercialization of IT, users are demanding self-service, anywhere/anytime/any-device access to enterprise apps and their data.

To address these demands, VMware has launched VMware Horizon Workspace. Workspace includes several feature sets, including:

Horizon Application Manager, allowing IT to create an enterprise ‘app store’ where users can provision, on-demand, any application to which they are entitled. These apps can be legacy Windows applications that have been packaged with VMware ThinApp, SaaS applications where Horizon can pass single sign-on (SSO) credentials from your Active Directory to the cloud-based application, and mobile device apps for Android and Apple phones and tablets.

Personal file storage via Horizon Data, providing a centralized, easily accessible personal file storage. The Horizon Workspace mobile app (for Android or Apple), PC-based Horizon agent, and rich web interface provide easy access to all data users have stored in Horizon, with the ability to preview and share files and folders with any user – internal or external – with IT controlled policies and class of service rules.

Desktop as an app, presenting View-based Windows desktops to users, accessible through native HTML5. With desktop as an app, users can connect to a Windows PC to use legacy applications, then return to a personal device to continue their work in other applications presented through Horizon.

These are just a sampling of the capabilities across the products in the VMware Horizon launch. With VMware Horizon, IT can re-imagine and reinvigorate endpoint management to deliver cutting-edge services and flexibility to our user base while maintaining control and security of corporate assets. Clearpath has been running beta versions of these products in our lab – we’re happy to provide demos of the VMware Horizon Suite of products or to help you plan how to best leverage View, Mirage and Workspace in your environment.