Yesterday VMware released version 3.0 (build 127642) of its VDI connection broker, once known as Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM). The product is now named VMware View and offers three main new features.
First of all, the new release VMware moves deep into the Citrix and Quest/Provision Networks territory as View 3.0 is now able to coordinate end users access to Microsoft Terminal Server and generic Windows boxes with RDP enabled. VMware calls this Unified Access.
Much more than that the product experimentally introduces the much wanted offline VDI capability, allowing users to check out their virtual desktops and leave the corporate network with its image stored locally in their laptops.
Last but not least, VMware View introduces the capability to update a large-scale VDI through the use of the linked clone feature on a gold master virtual desktop.
Here the capability is called View Composer and VMware says it can cut up to 70% of the storage space (here’s a real-world example but what happens if the gold master image becomes corrupted?).
One major thing that this version of View is missing is the announced brand new remote desktop protocol that VMware is developing with the startup Teradici.
Nonetheless View 3 introduces some RDP enhancements thanks to the collaboration with the thin clients vendor Wyse Technologies.
Following Citrix and its XenDesktop in the attempt to bundle a complete application delivery platform, VMware offers View 3.0 in two editions.
The biggest one, Premiere, includes the hypervisor (ESX) and its management console (vCenter), the connection broker (View Manager), the application virtualization platform (ThinApp) and the desktop virtualization platform (Workstation).
But as Brian Madden says VMware View is still distant from Citrix XenDesktop as the former cannot seamless merge (yet) local and remote apps on the user’s desktop.Download a trial here.
The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Roadmap and the Virtualization Industry Radar have been updated accordingly.