Archive for the ‘View’ Category

You might not know this but in VMware View 5.0 the screws have been tightened light bit more with regards to View Client and SSL certificates. Up until this point you could get away with using the bulti-in certificates generated by the installer. That’s no longer the case, because just as with web-browsers – the new clients all check to see if the certificate matches the name that your connecting with and whether or not the certificate is trusted.

Users can find these sort of pop-ups alarming, and you can guarantee a certain proportion of them will find up at the feet of the help desk people. In this article on techtarget’s site I take you though the process of requesting, importing and configuring SSL certificates for View 5.0.

Last night VMware released a tech preview. Something that many of us have been waiting for sometime. It’s a PCoIP View Client for the MAC!

Features include:

-       Support for Intel-based Macs

-       PCoIP protocol optimized for VMware View 5

-       Full screen support for Mac OS X Lion users

-       Copy and Paste plain text between View 4.x virtual machines and Mac

-       Copy and Paste text, formatted text, and graphics between View 5.x virtual machines and Mac

-       Support optional RSA authentication

-       Enhanced certificate checking

-       Add up to 4 VMware View server shortcuts in VMware View Client

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/desktop/view/client_for_macosx

Remember this a tech preview so regard it like beta code, and not for production use… I found it a little slow to update & present the desktop on first use, but after that it was very quick. I think that probably says more about how little I used the lab environment where I currently have this sort of access. My HomeLab is PCoIP ready, but my ProLab isn’t yet – and I’ve been spending more time in the prolab recently

Last week I decided to upgrade my View4.6 lab to View5. I’d have to say the upgrade was smooth and painless – except after the upgrade I had problems with PCoIP connections though the firewall. Looking at the Connection Server (CS) settings everything seemed fine. All the settings behind the CS had been maintained via the upgrade… When I upgraded the Security Server (SS), I was asked to “Specify Security Server Pairing Password”. In case you don’t know every SS that is installed is unique paired to the CS this is done via pairing password to make sure folks can’t go around pairing SS to CS willy-nilly.

Although I could connect to the public FQDN, and get so far as selecting a desktop, my connection kept on being dropped before the desktop was initialized. This looked like a classic failure to open the PCoIP port on the firewall. But I had done that many months ago. So what changed?

Well, it looks as if the upgrade of the SS blatted the previous settings of the SS. I discovered to my horror that settings behind the SS itself had reverted to internal IP addresses…

These are held in:

View Configuration >> Servers >> Security Servers Pane >> Select the SS and click Edit…

I had to clear out the private IP (in the 192.168.3.x range) and replace with public FQDN and public IP address.

Once these were in place the connection proceeded without an error.

I’m still not sure if this was a personal funky experience; something to do with the upgrade; or an known-issue, that I didn’t know about.

Note of Explanation: For some reason I’ve got into the habit of saying Aye-PAD, Aye-Phone, Aye-POD with thick Geordie accent. It’s silly and I will soon grow out of such juvenile behaviour. For the Americans out there – this is an impression of a Geordie accent – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1zfG9No12Y We do talk funny here in the UK sometimes…

Well, they have finally gone and done it. VMware have released an View Client for the Aye-PAD. Personally, I don’t have one of these devices so I wasn’t able to take advantage of playing around it before the release. I’ve been holding off from getting my Aye-PAD until the G2 release. Sadly, it looks like the US will get the first chance of that on the 11th, as the RoW don’t get the chance to order until the 25th. I’m sure my life will be changed by having one [I'm joking by the way!]

And before you make them those jokey comments, no I wasn’t able to persuade anyone to give/lend me an aye-PAD before the release!

The VMware View client for Aye-PAD can be downloaded for free from the App Store here – and is a great way to get Windows running on a £579 tablet… Sorry, I couldn’t help that…

As of yet there’s no multi-tasking support in the View Client for IPAD – that’s likely to change in the future… The other issue to be aware of is that in “order for the View desktop display to autofit the iPad screen when you rotate the iPad, you must power the virtual machine off and then power it on. That is, after the desktop pool is created, the administrator must use vSphere Client or some other means to power off and then on the virtual machine that will be used as a View desktop on an iPad”. So I imagine that could be an issue for folks toggling between using View with conventional desktop computer or laptop – and then later switching to the iPAD.

It’s difficult to say really, as I DON’T HAVE AN aye-PAD…YET!

Here’s a couple of screen grabs to whet your appetite. What will they think of next at VMware, and IPAD app for………….

And there’s also some videos of thing here as well – http://www.flickr.com/photos/vmwarepr/

My fellow blogger, Eric Sloof actually has an iPAD and did this video!

There are so a user guide and release notes as well

Well, I think the blogpost title kind of says it all. As of today my View 4.5 Guide is now completely free to download.

Why I have a decided to this. Well, for a couple of reasons.

1. View 4.6 was released today – introducing new functionality. In particular the Security Server is now compatible with PCoIP. It’s always been my policy that as new version comes out. I either write an update – or I make the previous edition free – this was the case with the SRM 1.0 and 4.0 books. If you want to learn about 4.6 new functionality watch this video below its great!

VMware View 4.6 PCoIP Remote Access from Mark Benson on Vimeo.

2. It unlikely I will have time to finish the View 4.5 book, or indeed update it so it covers the new features of View 4.6. I wasn’t made privy to the new features of the 4.6 release or indeed have early access to the code. My focus for the next couple of quarters is in writing 3rd edition of my SRM book. The bottom-line is I haven’t the hours in the day to write for TechTarget and write two books at the same time – and do the chinwag, vendorwags, speak at UGs… The list goes on…

3. This week I discovered the PDF version of my book had gone on to a dubious website. As you might know – the $10 I was collecting for the View 4.5 Guide was going to UNICEF. Now the book has leaked out in this way, it seems likely that people will get hold of copy of the View 4.5 guide without that charitable donation being made. So as away of heading those people off at the pass, I thought I would release it for free today.

Erm… and that’s about the size of it. If someone out there feels they would like to take up the baton, and take my content – and complete and update it to View 4.6 I would be interested. We would then re-release the guide for free on RTFM, and I would happily share the credit with the individual concerned. Of course my name would be in super-huge letters, and your name would appear in Font size 8. [JOKE]

The guide is still available to buy in hard-copy format with no royalties attached, and PDF version up there is free download as well. You can of course download the guide directly from my site as of today. If you a blogger – please point to this page – as it all counts against my hits.

Click at the pic to download:

[Special Note to Bloggers: Please link to this blog post NOT directly to LULU. It means I get the hits rather than LULU which help with my Google Analytics stats. Thanks!]

Today I’m releasing my very long guide to View 4.5. I’m kinda loathed to call it a “book” because its no way as detailed as my previous works on Vi3, SRM and vSphere4. For me its still very much a work in progress. With that said, I like to mark product GA days with a release of one my guides, and so that’s why I’m releasing it to day. It runs to some 190 pages of text and graphics, and I’ve been working on it since I joined the View 4.5 Beta Program. It contains 21 “chapters” but I’m not being grand here, sometimes these chapters are just a couple of pages long. I’ve tried to use the chapters to outline the major steps you go through in building out a View environment.

Here’s a chapter list:

Chapter 1: Introduction to Virtual Desktops
Chapter 2: Install a Connection Server
Chapter 3: Post-Configuration of Connection Server
Chapter 4: Install Agent into Virtual Desktop
Chapter 5: Install the Local Mode View Client
Chapter 6: Publish an Individual Virtual Desktop
Chapter 7: Publish a Dedicated Virtual Desktop Pool
Chapter 8: Publish a Floating Virtual Desktop Pool
Chapter 9: VMware Composer and Linked Clones
Chapter 10: Refresh, Recompose and Rebalance
Chapter 11: Enabling Local Mode
Chapter 12: Enabling Kiosk Mode (TBC)
Chapter 13: Publishing Terminal Servers/Remote Desktop Services
Chapter 14: Microsoft Group Policies
Chapter 15: VMware View User Experience
Chapter 16: Install a Connection Server Replica
Chapter 17: Install a Security Server
Chapter 18: Load-Balance Security Servers
Chapter 19: Create and Apply Certificates
Chapter 20: Virtual Application with VMware ThinApp
Chapter 21: Managing VMware View with PowerCLI

So it’s an author’s edition in the sense that’s it almost there, but I feel there is still work to be done – to polish it up. But at the same time, I felt it was “good enough” to release to day. The content has yet to be QA’d against the GA release for start, and I recently had the opportunity to submit the manuscript to VMware – and hoping for some quality feedback from them – from which I improve what’s there already, and at the same time add additional content here and there…

Today I also made a change to the way I distribute both the SRM book and the View Guide. They are STILL BOTH available for PDF download, but now the donation to UNICEF is mandatory. It’s come to my attention that a small minority have been downloading the PDF version of the SRM 4.0 book without doing their moral duty and donating the $10 to UNICEF as I hoped. So because of those small number of people I’ve decide to make this a mandatory – $9.99. Of course this shouldn’t bother the good folks who would have donated anyway, right?

If you do download the View 4.5 Guide please keep a record of your purchase. When the full version is ready you will be welcome to contact me with your proof-of-purchase, and I will send you a private link where you can download the full PDF version at no additional charge. I don’t think you should have to pay twice for the PDF where there might be only 10-20 pages of additional content and bug fixes. At this time I will also make available a print version together with a more fancier cover. In the meantime if you click the graphic below that should take you to the download page on LULU.

The other good news is that with the GA,  VMware View 4.5 finally got the seal of approval from the folks at Gartner. This is a bit of shaggy dog story. But at the beginning of the year, Gartner declared a plague on both the houses of Citrix and VMware. Declaring that neither product possessed all the required criteria to be regarded as Enterprise ready. Later in the year Citrix release SP1 for XenDesktop – beating VMware to the finish line. Some people say suspiciously so. There was a rumor that Citrix was tipped the wink on View 4.5 delays, and given the nod that if they were able to push out SP1 early, then they would score points over VMware. Anyway, whether there is any truth to this rumor is anyone’s guess – I just enjoy spreading them! Anyway, recently the scales will tipped back in balance with Citrix, with VMware receiving the same thumbs up from those folks at Gartner.

Today VMware’s View 4.5 product which was “announced” at VMworld last week, has been GA’d. Whoop-Whoop!

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_view/4_5

If you want to learn more about View 4.5 offers, today TechTarget published my article all about the product…

You can hear a computer generated text-to-speech version of the article below..

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