VMworld 2015: New Innovations in End-User Computing (EUC)

New Innovations in End-User Computing (EUC)

During today’s VMworld 2015 Keynote, VMware’s End-User Computing (EUC) Team announced four new features or innovations revolving around device management & application delivery, and business mobility. These four new innovations are:

[Official Press Release Here]

By Sumit Dhawan, senior vice president and general manager, Desktop Products, End-User Computing, VMware

Welcome to day 2 of VMworld U.S. 2015!

We have already had some great starts at VMworld with announcements around hybrid cloud, cloud native apps, EVO:SDDC and more. We will kick off today with more exciting news about Business Mobility from the VMware End-User Computing team.

VMware End-User Computing introduced four new innovations this morning for universal application delivery and device management, which we believe is what customers need to transform their business processes and deliver a more user- and application-centric workspace experience. Our announcements for these four innovations today expand on the company’s business mobility strategy that was outlined at the VMware Business Mobility launch event earlier this summer. Here is a summary of the announcements:

  1. VMware Project A2 – We are announcing a new technology preview called Project A2 that offers a new mobile-centric approach to delivering and managing applications and devices for Windows 10 using AirWatch enterprise mobile management (EMM) and VMware App Volumes application delivery technology. This integrated solution enables our customers to accelerate their adoption of Windows 10 with mobile-like management for their devices and applications.
  1. VMware Identity Manager Advanced Edition – We are also introducing a new identity solution called VMware Identity Manager Advanced Edition that is a standalone identity as a service (IDaaS) solution for simplified access and identity management. Our existing solutions, Horizon and AirWatch already include this key enabling technology platform for delivering a single sign-on experience for Windows, SaaS and mobile applications. We are now announcing the release of this key, proven technology as a standalone product for customers that seek a standalone identity as a service solution.
  1. New innovations in VMware Horizon – We have been innovating fast on VMware’s hosted application and desktop delivery capabilities to help customers transform their traditional physical desktops into agile, mobile workspaces. Today, we’re introducing new capabilities with the new VMware Horizon 6.2 and VMware Horizon 6.2 for Linux, including expanded support for applications at-scale that will deliver a rich user experience to global deployment of virtual environments; an enriched user experience with support for Skype for Business and NVIDIA GRID™ vGPU™ (virtual graphics processing unit); new VMware Virtual SAN storage optimizations that will include all-flash options delivering much lower costs and incredible performance; enhanced security capabilities including support for biometric fingerprint authentication; and federal government readiness including FIPS 140-2 compliance. I believe VMware Horizon 6.2 will be our best platform ever shipped – an industrial, scalable and secure end-to-end solution to deliver Windows or Linux virtual desktops and apps with a great user experience. I am sure you will love the new capabilities and scale.
  1. VMware Project Enzo – Earlier this year we announced VMware Project Enzo that offers our customers transformed economics and cloud simplicity for virtual desktops and apps via a modern hybrid architecture and hyper converged infrastructure. The feedback on the technology has been great, as it becomes a solution for building a worry-free hybrid cloud for virtual desktops and apps. Now, customers will be able to get a deeper and more hands on look at the technology in their own IT environments as we make Project Enzo available as a beta.

Shankar Iyer has outlined in detail the capabilities and benefits found in VMware Identity Manager Advanced Edition, VMware Horizon 6.2 and Project Enzo, along with updates to Project Fargo and Project Meteor (ground breaking technologies for instant cloning of desktops and apps) in his blog post.

What I’d like to share with you is my perspective on how we are delivering a new paradigm inspired by mobile for managing and updating applications that our customers can get as they look to update their environment to Windows 10.

Helping Customers Accelerate to Windows 10

The launch of Windows 10 has been positioned as a milestone release for Microsoft and represents a fundamental shift in the way IT can manage all devices running the new software. I expect our customers to begin to adopt Windows 10 in the next 6 to 12 months. This is where we can help.

Everyone, including Microsoft, is recommending that customers should look at their management environment as they plan their update to Windows 10. Most of our current customers deploy and manage Windows images and distribute applications as part of the image updates or via tools that are used in concert with image management. This often leads to difficulty in managing application lifecycles that include updates and rollbacks, if needed. While using existing tools with Windows 10 is possible, we all have to question whether it is the right strategy for the long term. To help, Windows 10 has new EMM style management, which means that our customers have the opportunity to consolidate their PC/laptop management along with management of their mobile devices using a single control point and view.

This is why we announced Project A2, a solution that has two key components: VMware App Volumes for real-time delivering and managing applications, and AirWatch for managing Windows 10 environments and devices. The two work together to provide a compounded and multiplicative benefit to our customers – hence the name A2 (simple!).

VMware App Volumes is a modern approach to delivering and managing applications that can help with OS migrations. It offers real-time application install and uninstall using virtual storage volumes that get attached, detached and updated in real-time for the users. It is simple to use with easy packaging and user centric application assignments, and has very low infrastructure requirements. Best of all, for customers who prefer to use existing tools for managing their Windows 10 environment such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, they can still use VMware App Volumes along with it. Also, you can use App Volumes to have a single application hub for managing all apps delivered for physical or virtual environments (VMware Horizon or Citrix environments) in real time. You will be able to package the applications once – in fact, import them directly from System Center if you like – and with our common packaging format, we will handle the application delivery to all your virtual and physical environments.

The second key component of managing Windows 10 is AirWatch, the industry leader in enterprise mobile management. We have offered laptop management capabilities in AirWatch before with great success, including the management of Macs since the Mac OS has EMM based APIs. Windows 10 has extensive API sets for managing and securing Windows 10 devices and AirWatch will fully support those APIs giving our customers a single control point for all their mobile devices, laptops, and PCs including Macs. AirWatch also offers customers a consistent end-user mobile workspace for a single, central portal for users to seamlessly access all applications including Windows, SaaS and mobile apps from any device.

We believe that we are pioneering a unique approach in the industry with a combination of heterogeneous management and real-time application delivery that makes applications lightweight, easy to deliver and simple to consume for users using any device. Bottom line, you will be able to seamlessly move existing physical Windows applications into the new Windows 10 mobile-cloud platform and apply an EMM approach across all applications (universal and classic Windows applications) and devices.

 

 

Written by

Nigel Hickey is a Senior Technical Marketing Manager at NetBrain, bringing over 20 years of expertise in technical marketing and systems engineering. Known for creating engaging, strategic sales assets and delivering impactful presentations, Nigel specializes in promoting digital workspace and cloud solutions. His responsibilities include generating content, evangelism, collecting product feedback, and presenting at events.

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