The VMguy

I was going over the KB digest this morning and saw a few KB articles that hit home with a couple issues that customers have been asking me about regarding View.

The first is wondering how an admin can do more advanced things with the View Manager Server.  For instance: assign a default desktop out of a pool to a specific user or  listing orphaned desktops (users that no longer exist or have changed permissions and no longer have access to a desktop in a pool but still have one assigned to them) or cleaning up after removing a secondary View Manager server.  All of these items can be performed by a little-known command line utility included in View called vdmadmin.exe. Read the rest of this entry »

There were 5 new technical papers published last week.  Some really good reading for administrators and architects.

• VMware VDI Storage Considerations <-A great paper which discusses which protocol to use, how to lay out datastores, etc for View implementations.
• Running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 on VMware Infrastructure <-A great paper for those wanting to virtualize Sharepoint.
• Automating SharePoint Provisioning and Deployment on VMware vSphere <- This paper describes how you can setup sharepoint sites in templates for rapid deployment of new sharepoint instances.
• Virtualizing a Windows Active Directory Domain Infrastructure <- I know many have already done this  but it is still a great reference and includes best practices.  Definately want to confirm your settings against this white paper
• SAP Solutions on VMware vSphere: High Availability <- A good white paper on the availability options for SAP implementations and the benefits of each.

Just saw this little bit of news and had to share.  I get asked for this kind of functionality all of the time.  Customers ask, "Do you guys have a way for me to reuse my old PC and turn it into a thin client?"  In the long run, VMware will have CVP to be able to do this and a lot more.  In the short term, DevonIT just announces the VDI-Blaster software for $19.95 per device.  It allows you to take an older piece of PC hardware and use it as a thin client to extend it’s life just a little longer.  You can find the details on it here .  You can also find the press announcement here .

Now to get me a demo copy….

For those of of you who stayed up, I noticed the website change at 12:08am EST.

VMware’s desktop solution has been significantly updated.  It has now been renamed to VMware View.

You can find all of the infomation on View here .

You can find the downloads here .

For those interested, the What’s New Section of the release notes:

View Composer — Dramatically reduces the amount of storage consumed. Images can be provisioned in a few seconds in a fully automated manner by the VMware View Manager for rapid rollouts or as an immediate response to everyday support issues.

Unified Access — View Manager now brokers connections to physical PCs, terminal servers, and blade PCs in addition to virtual desktops hosted on VI3.

Virtual Printing — Provides end users the ability to print to any local or network printer. Virtual Printing includes a universal print driver, compression for print jobs, and auto detection of local printers from the View Client.

Enhanced User Experience — Extends MMR (multi-media redirection) to all Win XP and Win XPe based clients. Provides increased support for critical codecs- MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4 part2, WMV 7/8/9, WMA, AC3, MP3. Provides granular policies for USB redirection.

Offline Desktop (Experimental) — Provides the flexibility to intelligently and securely move virtual desktops between the datacenter and local resources. Users can check out their virtual desktops onto physical clients, use the virtual desktop locally, and then check it back in.

I’ll be posting some of the technical details on View in the coming weeks, stay tuned.