VMware Workspace ONE Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) provides a single console to deliver lifecycle management for your physical device fleet and your persistent virtual machines, hosted on-prem and in the cloud. (If you are unfamiliar with managing VMs with UEM, try it yourself in our VMware Hands-On Labs – see Module 4 – Modern Management of Horizon Desktops in our Horizon Getting Started lab.)
Now, what if you could add UEM management for a fleet of local virtual machines? This is a question I have been asking a lot of people, and the opportunities are many.
I recently moved from VMware EUC Technical Marketing to a product management role focusing on integrations within our extensive product portfolio. With the new responsibilities came an exciting, emerging technology that blends the benefits of Windows 10 modern management with VDI, while leveraging existing endpoint device resources and eliminating the need for centralized infrastructure.
What is Workspace ONE Managed VM?
The Workspace ONE Managed VM technology provides an end-to-end solution for delivering secure, managed Windows VMs on managed or unmanaged Windows and macOS devices. While traditional VDI relies on centralized infrastructure to host guest VMs, Workspace ONE Managed VMs run on the endpoint devices, effectively eliminating most infrastructure requirements. I like to think of this as infrastructure-less or local VDI. This flexible, minimal infrastructure technology is now available as a public beta, and currently supports VMs running on VMware Fusion and Workstation.
Where does Workspace ONE Managed VM fit in my device management strategy?
Well, we have some ideas, but we would really like to hear from you! We have heard numerous requests about bring your own device, road warriors, developers, temporary contract workers and several other use cases that could be supported by local VDI. In fact, there have been a few technologies created by VMware and others trying to support these use cases.
So, what makes this solution different? Workspace ONE UEM. From disk encryption to app management, compliance checks to remote wipe, this cloud-first, multitenant control plane puts complete control of the VM at your fingertips. Coupled with certificate-signed packaging of the VM and config files along with isolation of the guest from the host, you secure and manage the VM inside and out.
What’s next?
The Workspace ONE Managed VM technology is now available for public beta. If you would like to sign up, simply navigate to https://beta-ea.vmware.com and search for Workspace ONE Managed VM. To learn more, my colleague Pim Van de Vis wrote a great post about his experience with the Workspace ONE Managed VM beta.
Watch out for a follow up technical blog post providing more detail about the Workspace ONE Managed VM technology. (Update: This blog is now live. See How to use Workspace ONE to manage local VMs with our new beta.)
Finally, please ask questions and share your thoughts about how you might use the technology and what we can do to improve it, using the beta portal. We look forward to hearing from you!
