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VMware Apps for You

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Hello again, everyone, and welcome to my ongoing series — “The Support Outsider”, a look into VMware from the point of view of an outsider (me), Intern Moses Masih.

Moses MasihTaking a break from the usual Workstation and My VMware topics, this week I will be talking about some cool VMware / VMware-related apps which just might be what you are looking for your virtualization needs. Maybe you are already using these apps, so feel free to share your views on them here. If you are not using them yet, do try them out for yourself and see how they can help you out. For this week, I will be talking about two apps from VMware and in the coming weeks, I will also discuss other VMware-friendly apps out there.

My VMware app: First on my list is the My VMware app from VMware, Inc. Available for both iOS and Android, this is a great app to have on your iPhone, iPad or smart phone to view your entitlements, accounts, products, and license keys in a folder structure. You can also see the users and permissions associated with the folders. Though the app is free to download, you need to have a My VMware account in order to use it. (Check out this article Creating a My VMware profile (2007005) if you haven’t created a My VMware profile yet). If you are going to try out this app for the first time, check out the My VMware Mobile App FAQ; you will find a lot of helpful answers there. Another good article to read when using the app for the first time is My VMware Mobile App Overview (2017192). It will give you an overview of what the app is about and functionality it offers.

VMware vSphere Client for iPad: Next on the list is the VMware vSphere Client for iPad app, also from VMware, Inc. The app requires iOS 4.0 or later and is free to download on your iPad. This is a very useful app for viewing and managing your vSphere environment on the go. You can monitor the performance of your vSphere hosts and manage your virtual machine by starting up, stopping, and suspending your VMs. To get an overview of the app and see other features it offers, see the overview section in the VMware Community for this App. Before you start using the App, you will need to set up the free vCenter Mobile Access (vCMA) virtual appliance (available here at the VMware Labs) and also configure the app itself. Check out these two videos for setting up the vCMA virtual appliance and configuring the app; they will walk you through the whole process.

So, there you go, two handy VMware apps that will help you in your virtual environments. If you are running into problems with these or other VMware apps, check out the VMware Communities and see if a solution is already posted in there. You can also get in contact via Twitter: @vmwarecares.

Be sure to come back next week to check on my adventures as I go exploring the world of virtualization more.  Thanks for your time.

Restrict your virtual machines using Workstation 9

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Hello again, everyone, and welcome to my series, The Support Outsider — a look into VMware from the point of view of an outsider (me), Intern Moses Masih.

Moses MasihLast week I talked about encrypting virtual machines, a feature available in Workstation 9. Encryption adds an extra layer of security to your virtual machines; check out last week’s post for more information on this topic or watch the video on our KBTV YouTube channel to find out how you can encrypt your VM in VMware Workstation 9.

This week I want to discuss restricting virtual machines, another new feature in VMware Workstation 9.

Once you have encrypted a virtual machine, you can enable restrictions; this feature will allow you to prevent users from making any changes to the virtual machine’s configuration settings. Once restrictions are enabled, users will not be able to perform actions like remove virtual devices from the VM, change its memory allocation, change the network connection type, and various other actions (check out the Encrypting and Restricting Virtual Machines section in the Using VMware Workstation 9 guide to find out more about the actions that cannot be carried out once restrictions are enabled).

When you enable restrictions, you can also choose the ‘Require the user to change the encryption password’ option. This is a very useful feature if you wish to distribute a VM to multiple users. For example, if I wanted to provide my friends with a copy of the personal VM I use for software development purposes, I would select this restriction’s option which then will prompt my friends to change the encryption password when they open the VM. This saves a lot of time and effort as you only need to set a temporary encryption password for the VM once instead of setting passwords for all the copies of my VMs individually. Anyone who opens the copied VM now can change the encryption password at start up, to set up their own personal encryption password for their new personal VM.

Check out this video on our KBTV YouTube channel to find out how you enable restrictions on your VM in VMware Workstation 9.

If you have any problems restricting or encrypting your virtual machines, remember to check the VMware Knowledge Base (http://kb.vmware.com).

Come back next week to check on my adventures as I go exploring the world of virtualization more. Thanks for your time.