Employee Experience

Desktop Virtualization with VMware & Cisco

Vmware & cisco

If you didn’t see the announcement earlier this week our friends at Cisco put out a press release announcing the Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) and we here on the View team couldn’t be more excited.  With this infrastructure Cisco is setting out to simplify desktop virtualization and improve virtual collaboration solutions both of which I think are critical to helping customers with the adoption of desktop virtualization solutions like View.

View is an important part for the VXI story and the reference architecture that is built around it which pulls together a multi vendor solution across a slew of partners.  Technologies in the RA include View, network infrastructure, server, storage, end points and applications to deliver rich media and collaboration capabilities.  With this blueprint, Cisco, VMware and the others are working to break down the components so customers can get down to the real value and benefit from of these solutions.

A few new end point devices are also included in the announcement. The first is the Cius enterprise tablet (an Android device) which you may have seen announced earlier in the year at CiscoLive.  In addition Cisco is bringing 2 new zero clients to market.  The first, VXC 1110, is really pushing the footprint reduction envelope by delivering a thin client integrated with a Cisco IP phone.  The VXC 1120 is not quite as cool but still offers zero client capabilities in a small form factor.  VMware has plans to support all three devices with View next year when they start shipping.

You’ll be hearing more from us on the joint solutions with Cisco over the coming months and, as you may have noticed, we’re also planning on supporting their Cius Android based device.  Expect to hear more on that and our plans for the iPad here too.  In the meantime leave a comment letting us know what you think about the VXI solution.

More information

Solution Paper – Solve the Desktop Crisis with Cisco Desktop Virtualization Solution with VMware View

Blog Post – Cisco, Citrix, VMware and Wyse Make Desktop Virtualization Simpler, Better for Media Applications – by David McCulloch

Blog Post – Creating a Virtualized Collaborative Workspace with Cisco VXI – by Ben Gibson

Cisco Desktop Virtualization Solutions

VXI Video Data Sheet