VMware User Environment Manager 9.8 and App Volumes 2.17 have just been released with new features and improvements that will make your life as an IT administrator just a little bit easier. Both User Environment Manager and App Volumes are part of JMP (pronounced jump), which stands for Just-in-Time Management Platform, an integrated solution that delivers just-in-time desktops and apps in a flexible, fast, and personalized manner.
VMware User Environment Manager 9.8
With User Environment Manager, you can deliver a persistent experience to your end users, across any VDI instance or published application.
You do it by setting dynamic policies to map infrastructure – printer settings, network mappings, desktop backgrounds, and more – to user profiles. The infrastructure follows users as they move from virtual instance, to physical, and even to cloud-based desktops or apps. Your end users enjoy fast, personalized, and consistent access. You enjoy greater workplace productivity and lower operations and support costs. To find out more about this product, see User Environment Manager.
The improvements to User Environment Manager in this release include:
• Additional Horizon Smart Policies
• Regular Expressions Support for Conditions
• New Chrome Client Options to Endpoint Platform Condition
• Amazon FSx Support
Additional Horizon Smart Policies
New Horizon Smart Policy settings are available which give you greater control over the end user experience and enable you to optimize Horizon based on comprehensive conditions.
You can now enable or disable audio playback, which applies to both Blast and PCoIP. You can optimize the Blast Extreme protocol. And you can configure Drag and Drop settings. Horizon agent 7.9 or newer is required to read the new Horizon Smart Policy registry settings.
Regular Expression Support for Conditions
This release offers greater support for Regular Expressions with additional ways of evaluating conditions.
If you are moving from AppSense and RES, or otherwise familiar with Regular Expressions, this enhancement is for you. The enhancement complements the existing condition evaluators. It applies to conditions where applying a search pattern is useful.
New Chrome Client Options to Endpoint Platform Condition
This release offers new platform options for Chrome devices: Chrome ARC++ which is an Android app running on a Chrome device, and Chrome Native, a Native Chrome client.
This enhancement brings expanded support for Chrome endpoints and improved integration with Horizon. Note that for older clients, the native Chrome client is identified as Chrome Native, and the Chrome ARC++ as Android. Horizon Client 5.1 is required for these new options, and they are applicable only for Horizon Blast and PCoIP. Citrix ICA protocol is not currently supported.
Amazon FSx Support
This release also provides support for Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, a fully managed native Windows file system built on Windows Server. This simplifies User Environment Manager deployments for the hybrid cloud service partnership of VMware and Amazon known as VMC on AWS.
VMware App Volumes 2.17
VMware App Volumes is a portfolio of layering software solutions that helps reduce IT costs by putting applications into compartments for easier deployment in a virtual desktop and application infrastructure environment. By building a virtual machine disk file for applications and connecting them to a user desktop or virtual machine, App Volumes allows applications and data to follow end users across devices and sessions. You can use App Volumes to install, update, or remove applications for users in real time.
This release offers greater support to the popular set of App Volumes API, which helps integrate with existing operational tools that you might use as an IT administrator. This enhancement also provides you with additional new tools to perform routine testing.
For more information, see the product page for App Volumes. To take a look at the APIs themselves, see https://code-stg.vmware.com/apis/561/app-volumes-app-volumes-api#/.
