Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure is like fine wine. It keeps getting better and better over time. Last fall, we released Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure with support for RDS-hosted desktops and apps. Today, we are happy to announce that Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure with VDI will be available this quarter. Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure will support Windows 10 virtual desktops, RDS-based desktops and apps, as well as GPU and Azure Government. With our latest updates, customers will be able to connect their own instance of Microsoft Azure to our incredibly intuitive Horizon Cloud control plane, to create a secure, comprehensive, cloud-hosted solution for delivering virtualized Windows 10 virtual desktops and applications.
This release builds upon our work with Microsoft to deliver enterprise solutions that enhance user experience and productivity. We previously teamed up with Microsoft to deliver an optimized experience for Skype for Business on VMware Horizon. VMware helps organizations migrate to Windows 10 by simplifying image management. In addition, VMware Workspace ONE, powered by VMware AirWatch, helps organizations simplify Windows 10 device management.
While we are certainly excited about these new capabilities, you don’t have to take our word for it. Recently an exclusive group of customers participated in our beta program to get a sneak peek of the new capabilities we are releasing. Matthew Douglas at Smithfield Foods said the following:
“VMware Horizon on Microsoft Azure Cloud is a total game changer! The ability to service virtual desktops and application on Azure Cloud removes the complexity and huge hardware investments the enterprise used to have to make, let alone the very costly support that is needed to maintain an on-premises VDI environment. VMware Horizon Cloud delivers the first enterprise-grade solution for virtual application enablement with the ability to service applications to 1000’s of end users from a pool of servers, whereas the competition only has the capability to deliver from a single server leaving scaling impossible.”
– Matthew Douglas, Sr Director of Cloud & Solutions Architecture, Smithfield Foods
Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure with VDI Key Benefits
Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure includes a robust feature set and delivers a number of key benefits:
- Virtual Desktop and App Delivery
- Ability to deploy Windows 10 virtual desktops and apps on Microsoft Azure
- Graphics Visualization
- Superior graphics capabilities to visualize graphic-intensive workflows on Microsoft Azure GPUs
- Cloud-Based Management Console
- Intuitive Horizon Cloud management console to manage desktops, apps, and users in one place
- Built-in monitoring service with logs, notifications, and analytics
- Agent Auto Update (AAU) to easily update agents via the Horizon Cloud management console
- Easily update the Azure Node through the admin console in less than five minutes
- Health Alerts
- Alerts to help manage: CPU usage percentage, memory usage percentage, and disk latency
- Power Management
- Ability to track and manage Microsoft Azure capacity consumption to keep costs low
- Global Data Centers
- Single instance to manage deployments across many Microsoft data center regions around the globe
- Azure Government
- Azure Government infrastructure for US public sector and other entities requiring isolated infrastructure
- Security
- Support for RADIUS-Based Two-Factor Authentication
- Support
- Enterprise-grade, 24-7 support from VMware for the Horizon Cloud service
For more details on this announcement, please visit the Horizon Cloud webpage or the VMware/Microsoft webpage.
If you are headed to Synergy—be sure to stop by VMware booth (#309) to learn about the latest announcements coming from VMware End User Computing.
