Yesterday (15/09/11) was a massive release day for VMware, I am aware of 4 product releases yesterday. I will start my first post with the product that I am probably involved with the most VMware View.
View 5.0
VMware View 5.0 is the latest version of VMware VDI solution, the major enhancements in this release are as follows
- PCoIP Protocol Enhancements to include
- Optimization – IT Administrators are now able to configure the bandwidth setting by use case, meaning the possibility to save up to 75% of bandwidth
- Continuity Services – View is now able to deliver a seamless user experience to users with a unreliable connection, View achieves this by detecting interruptions and reconnecting the users session
- Extension Services – Allows WMI based tools to collect statistics and monitoring, trending and troubleshooting
- Persona Management – VMware’s acquisition of RTO software has finally seen the light of day. View is now able to manage users persona’s for floating non persistent desktops
- View Media Services for 3D Graphics – Allows the use of basic 3D applications such as Windows Aero without the need for a specialized graphic cards
- View Media Services for Integrated Unified Communications – This enables an integrated VOIP and View Desktop Experience. (This is going to be a great advancement for a lot of companies who have been unable to adopt VoIP due to needing to use software phones.
This release from a new functionality point of view isn’t really massive, but with the improvements to the PCoIP protocol it is really going to help VMware close the gap on Citrix, from what I am led to believe with the latest enhancements and optimizations the PCoIP should use the same and even slightly less bandwidth than the HDX protocol. I am sure the industry test will shortly approve or disapprove this shortly. One of the new functionalities of the PCoIP protocol is user side cache, it is important to understand that the existing PCoIP hardware thin clients won’t support this, a terra 2 chip is currently being manufactured that will have the increased memory to allow for the client side caching.
For more information on View 5 head over to the product page on vmware.com >> http://www.vmware.com/go/view
To download the latest version of View head over to the download page here >> http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_view/5_0
I am currently working on a lot of View 5 content, so check back regularly for updates. The VMware resource page hasn’t currently been updated with any new content but be sure to check the following site for updates.
http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/products/view.html
Virtualised Reality 
Have you had any experience with the RTO product and is it ready for prime-time yet? I don’t see a lot on it as of yet.
Hi Mie, I haven’t had a lot of experience with RTO yet to be honest, I use RES vWorkspace a lot with my View customers. It is something that I will be covering in the View book I am writing with Mike Laverick though.
Where did you get the news abyt the tera 2 chipset from terradici? I am interested to know when this will be available?
I don’t believe there has been an announcement on an official release yet, a number of thin client manufacturers have been discussing the new chip.