This week is arguably the best week of the year technology-wise, for yesterday VMworld Barcelona kicked off.
VMware’s End User Computing portfolio is currently undergoing a true revolution and End User Computing is present at the Fira Gran Via in a big way. A number of new technologies is being showcased at VMworld this year.
NSX meets Horizon
More and more companies opt to bring security of the IT infrastructure to a higher level. However, IT infrastructure security goes way beyond the network. Trends like Bring Yor Own Device and Unified Workspaces force us to provide an IT environment that lives up to the current, strict security requirements. VMware has cleverly played into the market demand for security on an end user level. NSX, a networking virtualization technology from VMware, lets us segment individual virtual desktops to allow only necessary traffic, in a scalable way. This is what we call micro-segmentation. In Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), scalability is essential. That’s why a technology like NSX needs scalability to be able to be deployed in VDI.
Project Enzo
Earlier this year, Project Enzo was revealed: a new method for managing desktops. Project Enzo is a combination of a number of products that will simplify the deployment of VDI and application delivery. First off, there is a new user interface, which is similar to the interfaces of both AirWatch and EVO:rail. This intuitive interface is HTML5 based, which makes it fast and easy to use in different browsers. Poject Enzo makes use of several types of Smartnodes. These are essentially sources from where a desktop can be deployed, for instance EVO:rail, Horizon AIR, Horizon DaaS and the traditional Horizon View environments.
Additionally, Project Enzo can use the newly introduced vSphere 6 technology InstantClone, allowing us to make a new active clone of a running VM, which runs exclusively in memory and can be created in a number of seconds. Add to this the automated provisioning of AppVolumes Appstacks and the result is an extremely scalable, dynamic VDI environment.
Application Delivery
When viewing the application landscape of (especially) enterprise companies, we see a shift in the way applications are delivered to end users. Traditionally, we are used to MSI installation files delivered with SCCM. Products like Identity Manager and ThinApp and the acquisition of AirWatch, Cloud Volumes and Immidio have positioned VMware to be market leader in the field of Application Delivery. This year at VMworld, there is a number of sessions dedicated to selecting the best application delivery technology. Let’s take Office for an example. Why would we install this in a traditional way on a Windows operated device? And, when introducing Bring Your Own Device, would we then only allow the use of Windows laptops? We would not, of course.
Products like Identity Manager and Airwatch enable us to automate the deployment of a primarily native application for each mainstream device, for instance Microsoft Office for Windows and iOS devices, but also applications like Slack and Skype.
Project A2
At VMworld San Francisco, VMware has announced the new product Porject A2, a collaboration between AirWatch and AppVolumes (hence the A2). AirWatch is the Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) system and AppVolumes the Rapid Application Delivery system by VMware. By combining these products and making use of Windows 10’s native EMM features, deployment of and migration to Windows 10 can be simplified severely. This week, several VMware End User Computing specialists are present at VMworld Barcelona to give Project A2 product demonstrations.
Boxer
During today’s keynote, Sanjay Poonen (general manager of End User Computing, VMware) announced the addition of Boxer to VMware’s EUC portfolio. Boxer is a mobile Inbox application which simplifies working with email on devices like an iPhone or Android Tablet. Boxer enables the use of the most popular email services, like Exchange, Google Mail, Yahoo and iCloud, from one simple interface.
The acquisition of Boxer suggests the AirWatch Inbox client will be gradually phased out, while its key features would be added to the Boxer application. The date of closing for the acquisition is yet unknown, but Boxer’s website already claims membership of the VMware portfolio.
