Extending support for traditional and next-gen apps.
This great news extends to VMware Horizon
customers, as we integrate, support and bundle VSAN and vSphere into
our offerings. So, what features in this new release benefit VMware’s
virtual desktop and application users? Well, the short answer is: a lot! Let’s take a look at some of the key features and
advancements our Horizon customers can enjoy with vSphere 6.5 and VMware
Horizon 7.
VMware just released VMware Verify, a brand new two-factor authentication (2FA) app for securing your digital workspace, available for free withVMware Identity Manager.
VMware Identity Manager (IDM) integrated with third-party 2FA solutions for a long time through RADIUS and SAML protocols. This allowed customers to leverage their existing investments in these technologies, while protecting login into VMware IDM portal that presented keys to the kingdom through single sign-on (SSO) to apps. But, customers without a third-party 2FA system had to purchase them separately. Now, you can use the Verify app to secure login to VMware IDM and other apps. The Verify app is available for iOS and Android devices.The Chrome app for Windows is coming soon.
It uses modern mobile push tokens, where users get a push notification on their mobile device that they can simply accept or deny. When the user’s device does not have cellular reception, such as in airplane mode when traveling, the user can open the Verify app and use a one-time passcode (aka soft token). Also, if you have users with flip phones, they can receive a one-time passcode over SMS. These three methods cover all types of scenarios, ensuring that the right user can always log in.
After you install Horizon Agent 7.0 in a Windows 7 or Windows Server
2008 R2 remote desktop, you can no longer use the Microsoft RDP display
protocol to connect to the remote desktop. This problem occurs because
TLSv1.0 is disabled by
default in Horizon 7 version 7.0 and later.
Did you ever wonder how ThinPrint works? Printing is the one topic that most engineers dread. Here are some great articles and videos that go over ThinPrint architecture, basic setup and troubleshooting tips for when things don't go as planned.
This video was done by Jason Southern. Jason has a whole series of videos specializing in GPU related topics. Definitely worth checking out. Here's An overview of how to configure a VMware Horizon VIEW deployment to deliver vGPU enabled Windows 7 desktops using linked clones.
How do you apply SSL certificates to View Connection Servers and is a self signed certificate adequate?
Official answer: Unsigned Certs in a lab environment are fine but in a Production Environment it's highly recommended that a cert signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) be used. Use of certificates that are not signed by a CA can allow untrusted parties to intercept traffic by masquerading as your server. Not a good thing.
There are many documents online that go over the process of assigning a CA signed certificates. Here are the links that I use:
So what is Project Enzo aka VMware Horizon Air Hybrid-mode? My customers are asking me that magic question quite a bit lately . Here are some good resources to check out:
VMware Horizon Air Hybrid-mode combines the benefits of cloud based management, intelligent orchestration and hyperconverged infrastructure to radically transform virtual desktop and application delivery -making it easier and more cost effective than ever before to adopt, deploy and manage on-premises virtual desktops and apps.. (marketing Stuff)
VMware
So why do I want to take a look at this? Here's a quick summary:
Simple Out of the Box Set-Up – Virtual desktops and applications can be up and running in less than an hour.
Create and Scale Desktops at Cloud Speed – VMware Instant
Clone technology integrated with VMware App Volumes™ and VMware User
Environment Management technologies will allow IT administrators to
create and scale desktops at cloud speed – allowing up to 2,000 virtual
desktops to be created in under 20 minutes.
Eliminate Maintenance Windows With Seamless Updates – Maintenance windows will be eliminated with seamless updates that can be applied instantly to Windows images and applications.
Hybrid Cloud Flexibility – Desktop and applications can be
moved back and forth from on-premises datacenters to the cloud, along
with the flexibility of using the cloud as a primary use case for
everyday productivity, or secondary use cases for desktop bursting or
disaster recovery.
Right-Sizing Infrastructure Needs – More efficient assessment
combined with operational and capital cost savings will enable Project
Enzo to transform the economics for enterprise desktops by avoiding
over-provisioning of resources.
Here's the link for VMware Horizon Air Hybrid-mode aka Project Enzo.
A customer asked me a question about configuring Real Time Audio Video (RTAV) in VMware Horizon 7. The answer can be found on the VMware Horizon 7 Documentation Center. It does a decent job explaining the concepts and goes over the necessary steps to setup RTAV correctly.
Real-Time
Audio-Video allows
View
users to run Skype, Webex, Google Hangouts, and other online conferencing
applications on their remote desktops. With Real-Time Audio-Video, webcam and
audio devices that are connected locally to the client system are redirected to
the remote desktop. This feature redirects video and audio data to the desktop
with a significantly lower bandwidth than can be achieved by using USB
redirection.
Real-Time Audio-Video is
compatible with standard conferencing applications and browser-based video
applications, and supports standard webcams, audio USB devices, and analog
audio input.
This feature installs the VMware
Virtual Webcam and VMware Virtual Microphone on the desktop operating system.
The VMware Virtual Webcam uses a kernel-mode webcam driver that provides
enhanced compatibility with browser-based video applications and other
3rd-party conferencing software.
When a conferencing or video
application is launched, it displays and uses these VMware virtual devices,
which handle the audio-video redirection from the locally-connected devices on
the client. The VMware Virtual Webcam and Microphone appear in the Device
Manager on the desktop operating system.
The drivers for the audio and
webcam devices must be installed on your
Horizon Client
systems to enable the redirection.
