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The open source remote desktop protocol SPICE, supported by Red Hat has reached version 0.8.0. This version is the follow-up of version 0.7.1 which was released in December last year.
Version 0.8.0 contains mostly bugfixes, but also contains two new features:
In February virtualization.info reported on the fact that Microsoft announced a new Windows 7 version tailored for VDI access, called Windows Thin PC (WinTPC), becoming available for customers who use Software Assurance. Now Microsoft has anounced a public Community Technology Preview (CTP), which is available on its Connect website.
WinTPC is a smaller foodprint, locked down version of Windows 7, which enables customers to install this windows version on existing PCs repurposing them as thin clients which can be used to access Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments. WinTPC is comparable with Windows XP Fundamentals, which was revealed in 2005.
Ericom, the company which provides VDI solutions has released a beta of its HTML5 client for VMware View. The HTML5 client will be able to access Vmware View desktops using the Remote Desktop Protocol(RDP) from any HTML5 compatible web browser.
The clients doesn’t require Java, Flash, Silverlight or any other underlying technology, which makes it quite unique. It leverages WebSockets, AJAX, JSON and HTML5 technologies. Unfortunately it doesn’t support the PCoIP protocol yet, but that can change in the near future, since Ericom is planning more future development based on feedback.
During the annual Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas last week, Microsoft announced the release of Service Pack 1 for System Center Virtual Machine Manager Release 2.
Service Pack 1 mainly adds support for Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX, introduced with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 in Februari this year. It also contains a rollupof all released hotfixes for SCVMM 2008 R2.
With the release of Service Pack 1 Microsoft also updated the Management Pack for SCVMM 2008 R2 used by System Center Operations Manager, so that current memory consumption is used by Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) instead of a static memory value.
Xen.org, the community which develops the Xen hypervisor under the GNU General Public License (GPLv2) has released version 4.1, this version is the follow-up of version 4.0 which was released in April last year.
Xen is a virtualization engine, used by several Linux distributions, NetBSD and Solaris but also serves as a basis for the Xen Cloud Platform (XCP) and Xen Hypervisor for Client Devices (XCI) for example, which will probably include a new version of Xen in a future release. Also Citrix XenServer which derives from XCP and Citrix XenClient which derives from XCI use Xen.
In June last year, virtualization.info covered Dögel IT-Mangement, a company entering the application virtualization market, with a product called Evalaze.
Now Dögel IT-Management has released version 1.0 of its Evalaze application virtualization product.
Evalaze provides a sandbox in the Windows OS providing file system and registry redirection. Applications are captured in snapshots and provided as EXE files which can be executed on clients.
VKernel has released a new product which will become part of their vOperations Suite (the new name for the VKernel Capacity Management Suite), called Performance Analyzer.
Performance Analyzer monitors, diagnoses, and resolves performance issues in virtual environments, and therefore competes with the AliveVM functionality which VMware released last week when they announced vCenter Operations. Its clear that VKernel is seeing VMware more as a competitor than as a partner, as virtualization.info reported in July last year.
In April 2009 Microsoft released version 1.0 of its Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) tool. The technology was acquired from Kidaro, which Microsoft acquired in 2008. In April 2010 Service Pack 1 for MED-V 1.0 was released introducing support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
In August last year, virtualization.info reported about the upcoming 2.0 release of MED-V, concluding that the expected features were not very promising compared to the potential of the product since Microsoft offers the solution to maintain legacy applications while updating to new OSes. Now Microsoft has released MED-V 2.0 as part of their Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2011.
After releasing App-V 4.6 in March last year, Microsoft has now made available Service Pack 1 for App-V 4.6 which is part of the Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2011. Most of the new features are focussed around the sequencer, which is the tool part of App-V to transform traditional applications into virtual ones.
In October last year, virtualization.info reported about VMware showing off vCenter, View and vCloud Request Manager iPad Clients. Now VMware has released its View client for the iPad, available via Apple iTunes. The client provides the ability to logon to a View desktop using the PC over IP (PCoIP) protocol over the LAN or WAN, for which the ability to access the View infrastructure over the WAN using PCoIP was enhanced in the 4.6 release of VMware View. (see this article from Brian Madden about the negative aspects)