VMware released VMware View 4.0.1 yesterday:

What’s New in View Manager 4.0.1

VMware View 4.0.1 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues in the previous releases. For details, see the Resolved Issues section.

This release includes the following new features.

Localization of VMware View

The View Client and online help for View Client are now available in Japanese, French, German, and simplified Chinese. The View Manager Administration Guide, View Manager Release Notes, Getting Started with VMware View document, View Upgrade Guide, and View Architecture Planning Guide are also available in these languages.

VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 and ESX 3.5 Update 5 Support

View Manager 4.0.1 includes support for VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 6 and ESX 3.5 Update 5.

Enhancements to the PCoIP Display Protocol

PCoIP now supports the following features:

• Virtual Printing, which allows end users to use local or network printers from a View desktop without requiring that additional print drivers be installed in the View desktop.
• Single sign-on support for third party providers such as Sentillion and Imprivata.
• View Client supports international keyboards when using PCoIP.

For PCoIP-related bug fixes, see the View Client Resolved Issues section.

NetApp just announced the release of the Rapid Cloning utility (RCU):

NetApp is proud to announce the release of the Rapid Cloning Utility 3.0.  This release brings many new features to assist virtual data center administrators with managing their server and desktop environments to further reduce management overhead associated with traditional storage deployments.

Here is a list of some of the new or expanded features and support for RCU 3.0:

• VMware vSphere 4.0 support  
• VMware vApp support
• Data ONTAP 7.3.2, 7.3.3, and 8.0 7-mode support
• MultiStore support (requires Data ONTAP 7.3.3)
• 64-bit platform support
• Automatic import wizard into VMware View 4
• Create export file for Citrix XenDesktop 4.0
• Re-deploy VMs from a baseline image
• Create clones in qTree-based datastores
• Create clones in designated VM folders
• vCenter alert for misaligned source VM
• ‘Add storage system’ wizard with option to change attributes
• API enhanced to create, destroy and resize datastores, as well as re-deploy VMs
• Select virtual hard drive type (thin or thick) for clones
• Match guest host name to VM name when using a Customer Sysprep Answer File
• Clone nvram with VM
• Improved security for NFS datastore export

Read the rest of the announcement of the release of NetApp Rapid Cloning Utility.

The “Project Virtual Reality Check” team just released a new whitepaper: “Hyper-V 2008R2, vSphere 4, XenServer 5.5 on Intel ‘Nehalem’ Xeon 5500“. 

 “If you are looking for an independent advise and a ‘Reality Check’ in relation to Virtualizing Terminal Server and Desktop workloads, if you are curious about the impact of different hypervisors and the performance differences with various hardware and if you are searching for best practices for your virtual Desktops … Project VRC whitepapers are a must read!”

• Highlights, performance differences and best practice conclusions for Terminal Services workloads on:
  • Bare metal Terminal Services; 2003/2008/x86/x64
  • Hypervisors: Citrix  XenServer 5.5, Microsoft Windows Server 2008R2 ‘Hyper-V’ and VMware vSphere 4.0
  • Performance impact using different HP Proliant state-of-the-art hardware using Intel Xeon ‘Nehalem’ x5500  Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday during VMware vForum I was asked how ThinApp was licensed. I did know that ThinApp was licensed per device. But what does that mean, per device? What if I use the ThinApped applications on Citrix XenApp servers, do I have to pay a license per Citrix XenApp server? What if I put the ThinApp license on a USB-device? This knowledgebase article is clear about ThinApp licensing:

• VMware licenses ThinApp on a per-device basis. Read the rest of this entry »

Not a lot of info is found when you Google for manually selecting/fixing the primary HA nodes in a VMware VI or vSphere environment. Of course Duncan Epping has a couple of extremely interesting posts on Yellow-Bricks.com concerning HA even when it comes down to selecting or promoting the HA status of ESX nodes (a must read!), but I want more …

Let’s start with what I assume to know about HA:

- HA works with primary and secondary HA nodes
- The primary nodes are aware of the states and configs of all nodes in an HA cluster
- The secondary nodes depend on the primary nodes
- There is an supported limit of 5 primary HA nodes per cluster
- The first 5 ESX hosts that are added in a HA cluster are initially defined as primary HA nodes
- All the other hosts that are added to the HA cluster are configured as secondary HA nodes
- There’s a way to configure a HA node as primary or secondary, however it’s not possible to configure an ESX host as a “fixed” primary HA node:
Read the rest of this entry »