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Category Archives: EUC Strategy

Hitting the Target with VMware Horizon View

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By Tisa Murdock, Group Manager, EUC Healthcare Solutions and Farid Agahi, Sr. Business Strategist, VMware Healthcare

It is official! VMware Horizon View (both 5.1 and 5.2) is the first VDI solution that has achieved Target Platform status for delivering Epic Hyperspace to clinical users. Target platform is determined after performing a wide range of usability, performance, and scalability tests plus documents are created to provide sizing guidance to customers.  Valuable experience and data points from customers already running Horizon View were used to share best practices with the larger community.

This is a milestone achievement for Horizon View and it reflects how VMware along with Epic and our joint customers act as change agents to push transformation in healthcare.  Together we are solving real problems with tested, validated and scalable solutions.

What are those problems?

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VMware & Riverbed – Branch Office Virtual Desktops Faster than the Speed of Light

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by Eric Carter, Director of Product Marketing, Riverbed Technology

When it comes to delivering applications over the wide area network (WAN), bandwidth is a key factor in performance, but just as critical is network latency. Yes, as fast as it is, the speed of light imposes a speed limit. Data can only move so fast over distance and through devices that connect point A to point B. The reality of physics takes its toll especially on interactive applications such as desktop virtualization. The good news is that technology innovation now makes it possible to overcome the speed of light issue – not necessarily bending the laws of physics – rather providing a new way to negate the effects of the WAN to deliver local “edge” performance from the data center even over thousands of miles.

Riverbed Technology designed its Granite product to present data-center-managed storage, servers, and applications as if they’re local in remote locations. As customers continue to invest in VMware Horizon View and extend desktop as a service to end user communities that work from branch offices, the unique capabilities of Granite with the Horizon Branch Office Desktop solution helps IT organizations preserve what they want – data center-based provisioning, management and security – while also providing users what they want – a high-performance, reliable desktop experience.

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Beware of Windows 7 Migration Hazards

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By Betty Junod, Director of Product Marketing, End-User Computing, VMware

Are you migrating your company’s desktops from Win XP to Win 7? Are you wondering if you’re doing it right or possibly doing something wrong that could lead to trouble down the road? Do you feel like you’re strapping on your hard hat every time you come into work?

A recent survey of 322 desktop administrators who have been involved in migrating from Win XP to Win 7 sheds interesting light into the impact, problems and opinions related to managing and executing this type of project.

The key findings from the survey include:

1)   64 percent of enterprises still need to migrate off Win XP (see how they compare to medium and small businesses, in the chart below)

2)   Security and compliance were the main drivers of migration (see what the top 3 drivers were, in the chart below)

3)   92 Percent of companies faced migration challenges (see the top 3 problems desktop admins faced, in the chart below)

4)   Companies that purchased new tools to help with the migration experienced over 50% fewer challenges than those using free tools from Microsoft (see how the surprising gap breaks down in different scenarios, in the chart below)

5)   83 Percent of desktop administrators reported being negatively impacted by the migration project (see what the top 3 impacts were to desktop admins, in the chart below)

So as you tackle your OS migration, think about these insights and how you might be able to avoid some of the challenges others who have gone before you have faced. Some guidelines can also be found in an earlier blog I wrote “Five Key Considerations Before Starting Your Windows XP Migration.”

Do any of the experiences expressed in the charts below resonate with you and your organization? Let us know by sharing your comments.  Also, feel free to continue the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.

Company Impact

1) 64 percent of enterprises still need to migrate off Win XP

·      64 percent of enterprise companies still need to migrate off of Win XP

·      52 percent of mid-sized companies still need to migrate off of Win XP

·      61 percent of SMBs still need to migrate off of Win XP

2) Security and Compliance Drove Migration 

Top 3 Reasons Companies Migrated

·      56 percent – Security updates

·      51 percent – Compliance requirements

·      49 percent – Corporate Mandate

3) 92 Percent of Companies Faced Migration Challenges

·      49 percent experienced user downtime

·      38 percent had Win XP applications that didn’t work with Win 7

·      37 percent user acceptance/training

 4) Companies that purchased new tools to help with the migration experienced over 50% fewer challenges than those using free tools from Microsoft

IT Impact

5) 83 Percent of Desktop Administrators reported being negatively impacted by the migration project

  • 47 percent worked weekends
  • 44 percent worked evenings
  • 37 percent put other projects on hold

 

 

Five Key Considerations Before Starting Your Windows XP Migration

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by: Betty Junod, Director Product Marketing

If your organization still needs to move from Windows XP to Windows 7, you are not alone. According to a recent study commissioned by VMware that surveyed 322 desktop IT professionals globally

  • 64 percent of enterprise companies still need to migrate off of Win XP
  • 52 percent of mid-sized companies still need to migrate off of Win XP
  • 61 percent of SMBs still need to migrate off of Win XP

If you are starting to feel stress as we move closer and closer to the Win XP support expiration date of April 8, 2014, rest assured that there is an easy way to tackle a company-wide OS migration project.

Migration and migraine do not have to go hand-in-hand as long as you take the time to prepare and use the right software tools to simplify and speed up the process.

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The VMware Horizon Suite on Nutanix – A match made in Heaven?

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By Steven Poitras, Solutions Architect at Nutanix, Inc.

I recently had the opportunity to head over to the VMware HQ and conduct a white boarding session on the VMware Horizon Suite on Nutanix solution.


When looking at the diagram in the solution video I noticed one thing, white space.  Rather than having complex lines going to LUNs/IQNs or chassis to arrays or uplinks, all we had to show was the Horizon architecture, which is what we really care about.

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Introducing HTML Access

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By Mike Coleman, End-User Computing

Last week we released the VMware Horizon View 5.2 Feature Pack, which included a couple of great new features: Unity Touch and HTML Access. Pat Lee just posted a blog on Unity Touch, and I’m going to give you some more information on HTML Access.

What is HTML Access?

VMware had previously talked about a project we referred to as AppBlast. For those unfamiliar, AppBlast was an advanced development effort that focused on using HTML5 to remote applications from a Virtual Machine. As we developed the code we realized we needed to break it into different components. HTML Access is the first instantiation of that endeavor.

(Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about the need for application remoting – I promise.)

HTML Access uses the HTML-based Blast protocol to allow access to VMware Horizon View desktops from almost any HTML5 compatible device. This is particularly useful in scenarios where an end user might not (or cannot) install a native Horizon View client – opening up all kids of use cases from disaster recovery to roaming users to access from unmanaged devices.

Once an admin configures HTML Access, users simply point their browser to VMware Horizon View Manager, authenticate, and chose the desktop they want to use.

Additionally, HTML Access can be integrated with VMware Horizon Workspace to provide further value by giving users a single access point for all their desktops and applications. In this use case, users log into their Horizon Workspace and can choose to use either the native Horizon View client or HTML Access to log into their desktops. This optional integration provides the most choice and flexibility compared to competitive solutions.

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Expanding the Market for Virtualized Desktops with High End Graphics

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by Geoffrey Murase, Sr. Solutions Marketing Manager, End-User Computing

There’s no denying that the desktop experience both at work and at home is becoming more graphics rich.  Whether it’s viewing Adobe 3D PDF drawings in the office or participating in a raid with your World of Warcraft guild (presumably while NOT in the office), the expectation for smooth, detailed graphics is growing.  For businesses using virtualized desktops, it’s been challenging to keep up with new graphics intensive applications without overtaxing the processing power of servers in the datacenter.

VMware is pleased to announce that we have partnered with NVIDIA to help solve this problem.  With our recently released VMware® Horizon View™ 5.2, we are now able to support graphics acceleration offloading to NVIDIA GRID GPUs in the datacenter.  This capability ensures that workers using virtualized desktops get a great visual experience and can use the latest graphics intensive applications while IT departments continue to enjoy the benefits of centralized data, security, and ease of management that desktop virtualization brings.

Use cases for this technology include sharing 3D drawings with third party development teams overseas without compromising security or using tablets to share detailed 3D medical images with colleagues or patients while on the go.  In education, low cost computer labs can be setup using thin clients and desktop virtualization while still providing access to the latest and greatest graphics rich applications.  In addition, everyday knowledge workers can benefit from this technology by experiencing faster rendering of PowerPoint presentations and smoother delivery of video.

Come visit the VMware booth (#401) at the GPU Technology Conference, March 19-21st at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, to see for yourself how users can experience rich graphics in a virtualized desktop environment.  We also invite you to attend VMware’s breakout session: “Access 3D Apps Anywhere, On Any Device With Accelerated Virtual Desktops (S3544)” to hear VMware’s Director of Product Management, Pat Lee, speak about this technology.

VMware at Enterprise Connect

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by Geoffrey Murase, Sr. Solutions Marketing Manager, End-User Computing

Enterprise Connect is happening this week and is probably the biggest conference focused specifically on the Unified Communications industry.  Leading UC vendors such as Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, and Mitel converge in Orlando, Florida each year to showcase their latest technological developments and share best practices.

VMware has been working closely with UC vendors to bring the benefits of virtualization to the unified communications industry not only on the server side, but on the desktop side as well.  One of the concerns with deploying desktop virtualization for real-time communications is the load that is placed on the datacenter for coding and decoding media.  However, VMware Horizon View has a special API that enables UC vendors to develop plug-ins that redirect media paths directly to endpoints, reducing latency and offloading the processing from the datacenter to the endpoints.  This enables businesses to scale their UC deployments in a virtualized desktop environment.

If you’re attending the show or are in the area, I invite you to attend the “Virtualizing Communications Servers and Clients” breakout session on Tuesday, March 18th at 8:00AM.  A little early in the day but it’ll be worth it!  Participants include:

  • Panelist – Geoff Murase, Sr. Solutions Marketing Manager, VMware
  • Panelist – Stephen Brown, Cloud Technologist, Mitel
  • Panelist – Jamie Stark, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation
  • Panelist – Tac Berry, Avaya Senior Product Marketing Manager, Collaboration Platforms, Avaya
  • Moderator – Irwin Lazar, Analyst, Nemertes Research

Enterprise Connect runs from Monday, March 18th through Thursday, March 21st.  Hope to see you there!

Introducing Unity Touch for iOS and Android

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By Pat Lee, Director Product Management, End-User Computing

Today, I am excited to introduce Unity Touch as part of the new VMware Horizon View 2.0 clients for iOS and Android! We have spoken to many Horizon View customers and they have said clearly that they need Windows apps on their mobile devices but those applications are difficult to use on small screens.  Unity Touch makes it easier to run Windows apps on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device.

With Unity Touch, users can easily browse, search, and open Windows applications & files; choose favorite applications and files; and switch between running applications, all without using the Windows start menu or task bar.

To see Unity Touch in action, watch Scott Davis’ video introducing the Unity Touch technology:


What is Unity Touch?

Unity Touch is our design center for making Windows and Windows apps easier to to use on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. The initial release of Unity Touch includes the following features:

Intuitive Sidebar Makes Windows on Mobile Easier Than Ever

The new Unity Touch sidebar automatically opens the first time you connect to a Unity Touch enabled Horizon View 5.2 desktop. The sidebar makes it easy to navigate the Windows All Programs and My Files folders from your iOS or Android device. After you find what you are looking for, the sidebar gets out of your way by automatically retracting. To get the Unity Touch sidebar back, just single left to right swipe or click on the moveable tab.

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New VMware Horizon View Clients and HTML Access Now Available!

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We just released new VMware Horizon View clients that are optimized for VMware Horizon View 5.2!

Optimized for Best Performance with Horizon View 5.2

The latest VMware Horizon View clients take full advantage of the optimizations in Horizon View 5.2.

Horizon View 5.2 offers new PCoIP client side caching improvements. With Horizon View 5.2, only 90 MB of client side cache is needed to get the equivalent performance of using 250 MB with View 5.1 and earlier. This change further optimizes View performance on mobile devices.

The new VMware Horizon View 5.3 client for Windows now supports Microsoft Lync unified communications when used with Horizon View 5.2.

Also, the latest VMware Horizon View clients are now localized for traditional Chinese in addition to the previously supported English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese languages.

Zero Install HTML Access to Your Horizon View Desktop

We have had many requests to provide zero install access to Horizon View virtual desktops. Today, we are proud to release HTML Access, which gives you easy access to your Horizon View desktop from almost any HTML5 compatible browser. HTML Access allows you to connect to your Horizon View desktop through the updated Horizon View portal or through the Horizon Workspace.

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