Last week VMware finally released View 4.5, this release has been anticipated for some time with delays on the rumoured release date a couple of months ago. The full feature set was announced during the VMworld conference keynote in San Francisco.
Below are a list of new features as appears in the the VMware View 4.5 release notes >> http://www.vmware.com/support/view45/doc/view45_releasenotes.html#whatsnew
View Client with Local Mode – Provides the industry’s first integrated offline and server-hosted solution for desktop virtualization, addressing BYOPC use cases. Full Windows 7 support – Provides full support for Windows 7. With View 4.5 and ThinApp 4.6, organizations can migrate to Windows 7 at half the cost and time. View Client for Mac OS X – Enables Mac users to access hosted Windows virtual desktops, extending the BYOPC use cases to Mac users. Integrated Application Assignment – Simplifies the delivery of ThinApp applications to end-users using the View Administrator console. Rich Graphical Dashboards – Simplifies management and monitoring through improved reporting and diagnostics. Role Based Administration – Distributes IT tasks to the right administrator. Integration with Microsoft SCOM and PowerShell – Enables integration into existing management infrastructure to further simplify the management of View virtual desktops, as described in the new VMware View Integration Guide. Support for vSphere 4.1 and vCenter 4.1 – Delivers integration with the most widely-deployed desktop virtualization platform in the industry. Takes advantage of optimizations for View virtual desktops. Increased scalability – Allows you to deploy 10,000 virtual desktops per pod and use this modular architecture to scale out across your organization. For more information, see the VMware View Architecture Planning Guide. Tiered storage support – Reduces the cost and increases the performance of storage by enabling you to take advantage of multiple storage tiers, including high performance and locally attached storage. Lowest Cost Reference Architectures – VMware has worked with partners such as Dell, HP, Cisco, NetApp, and EMC to provide prescriptive reference architectures to enable you to deploy a scalable and cost-effective desktop virtualization solution.
So as you can see from the list above this is a major release and adds onto View 4’s major updates.
Key points for me were
- vSphere 4.1 support, the fact View Composer was previously only a 32bit application and couldn’t be installed on a 64bit vCenter that 4.1 required was a bit of sticking point.
- Powershell integration will mean deployment, reporting and monitoring can be a lot more automated, Alan Renouf has blogged about this here >> http://www.virtu-al.net/2010/09/14/vmware-view-4-5-more-powershell-cmdlets/.
- We now finally have a supported release of offline mode called local mode, this means you can take your desktop with you when mobile. When you are back in the office you desktop is then synchronised back to the datacenter.
- Windows 7 support will be an obvious adopter of View technology for a lot of schools and businesses looking to do a desktop refresh.
- Mac OS C support for View Client
- Entitle ThinApp applications through the View Manager
I was a little let down by the Mac Client, whilst fantastic that VMware have started to make software for the Mac (Please build a vSphere client!) it isn’t really any more feature rich than the open client the was previously availble, there is no PCoIP support and no local mode for us Mac users.
Also in this release there is still no support for PCoIP through the View Security server, which was something I was hoping they would have resolved.
I’m really looking forward to starting to work with this new version and will blog about my findings over the coming weeks, for starters there is the View 4.5 upgrade guide here >> VMware View 4.5 Upgrade Guide
For those looking to get a head start on VMware View 4.5 Mike Laverick renowned virtualisation author and blogger has released an “Authors Edition” of his VMware View 4.5 guide, all profits from the sale of the guide will be donated to his chosen charity Unicef. For full details and to purchase the guide please visit Mike’s blog >> http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/2010/09/10/view-4-5-guide-authors-edition/
My copy is on my iPad already.
Virtualised Reality 