Just as a quick heads-up, for those of you that were not aware yet, recently we released MR2 (Maintenance Release 2) for Quest vWorkspace Web Access 6.2. Be aware that this is an update specifically for the Web Access component of Quest vWorkspace 6.2, not for other components of Quest vWorkspace. Next to the necessary hotfixes, there’s also one cool updated feature in there.

This updated feature allows you to hide a vWorkspace Web Access download from unauthenticated users. As with many features in vWorkspace, this makes a lot of sense. For example: you might only want to make client software, company certificates or other downloads (because vWorkspace allows you to host any download you need to your users) available to your - so authenticated - users and not to anyone that happened to come to your Web Access page.

Since MR2 fixes a fair amount of issues, we strongly recommend to everyone using Quest vWorkspace Web Access 6.2 to apply it. Before you do though, please read through the entire associated release notes.

MR2 (Maintenance Release 2) for Quest vWorkspace Web Access 6.2, as always, can be downloaded from the download section of vWorkspace.com under the “hotfixes” section.

As a part of our ongoing effort to provide customers with leading applicaton and desktop delivery technology at a pace that gives customers great value for money, after a little more than 3 months after our release 6.1 of Quest vWorkspace, we are happy to announce the next version of Quest vWorkspace: version 6.2!

Quest vWorkspace 6.2 brings several new exiting features, such as:

vWorkspace NetApp Integration

vWorkspace is now integrated with NetApp FlexClone technology. Here are some of the benefits of this integration:

• Rapid deployment of virtual desktops.
• An average of ninety percent disk utilization reduction saving valuable SAN or NAS storage (savings vary based on use case).
• Continuous desktop access due to advanced protection and fail over.

      VMware Platform support only.

Enhanced Multimonitor Support

Improvements have been made to enhance the user experience when using multiple monitors supporting a wider variety of orientations and mix/match resolutions.

Enhanced Graphic Acceleration Support

Graphics Acceleration improvements expand the applications which are accelerated, as well as improved speed and quality. Applications that use Microsoft DirectDraw are also now accelerated.

Enhanced USB Redirection

The USB Redirection feature has been enhanced with the following features:

• Improved support for audio and video USB based devices.
• Overall improved performance.
• Additional tuning and device exclusion options are included.

 Web Access and Microsoft SharePoint Integration (Experimental)

vWorkspace Web Access can now be used with Microsoft SharePoint.  Please note this feature is experimental, and currently not supported by Quest Support.  It is important that the Quest vWorkspace Web Access and Microsoft Office SharePoint Integration Release Notes are reviewed before implementing this experimental feature.

Other Features

• An alternative sysprep mode has been added for provisioning virtual machines on VMware platforms for use with provisioning domain joined machines which will be joined to an AD OU. This overcomes limitations introduced since Virtual Center Update 3..
• Additional status information has been added to the vWorkspace Management Console when Desktops or Other Servers nodes are selected.
• Modifications have been made to the database verification process to allow for version upgrades without including a database upgrade.

 It is important that you review the vWorkspace 6.2 documentation and release notes for further information on resolved and known issues.

 The release and product documentation are available on the vWorkspace web site at http://www.vworkspace.com, as well as the Quest SupportLink web site at http://support.quest.com/.

I recently used the ‘task automation’ feature of vWorkspace to assist with a customer solution. This came in very useful and allowed us to remotely modify the virtual desktops registry; I thought it would be beneficial to share this.

It is possible to schedule a task for a group of desktops or an individual desktop. To access the task automation screen right click a group or desktop and select properties and then task automation. Select new to create a new task, under the task section select ‘Run Program/Script on Computer’ and then under task parameters you can specify the relevant settings. I used this feature to remotely execute regedit.exe and import a .REG file from a network file share. This is simple feature but saved us a lot of work as we had 200 virtual machines that required this registry change.

The screenshot below shows and example of the parameters page might look:

A task can be configured to execute once or can be made re-occurring.

One of the core design goals of Quest vWorkspace is to provide customers with a flexible application and desktop delivery framework, regardless of the virtual infrastructure that they use. This requires us (we think) to provide advanced integration with all the leading virtual infrastructure products. To be honest, there are times that it is very evident to us that it would really be much easier to just support one (or two) virtual infrastructures (like many other vendors do), especially with new version of virtual infrastructures coming out all the time. Even though it requires significant development efforts to support  the leading virtual infrastructure products, we feel compelled to keep doing so and not choose the proverbial easy way out for us and for our customers so our customers can leverage their existing investments now and in the future.

This brings me to actual subject of this blog post: VMware vSphere. Ever since the early releases of VMware vSphere we have been working to make sure that Quest vWorkspace works with VMware vSphere to accommodate new and existing customers should they decide to use VMware vSphere as their virtualization infrastructure. It is therefore that I am happy to say that we officially support the following versions of Quest vWorkspace with VMware vSphere:

• Provision networks Virtual Access Suite 5.10 (build 161 )
• Quest vWorkspace 6.0 (HF3 )
• Quest vWorkspace 6.1

On another note, when researching vSphere I found out that VMware’s own VDI product (View) does not support vSphere yet. That really surprised me.
I guess this just emphasizes our position on providing good value for money for our customers.

One of the most popular features in Quest vWorkspace 6.1 is the tight integration with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008. The integration is very easy to configure but to make it even easier we have created a Quick Start guide to help you get started. As far as I know the Quick Start guide did not make it into the official 6.1 vWorkspace download, so to get the guide, either download it here or get it from the official Quest vWorkspace download site. The Quest vWorkspace 6.1 with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Quick Start Guide, as well as many other documents, are listed under the documentation section.

If you are curious about some of the new technologies that we are working on at the Quest Desktop Virtualization Group, there is great news. Recently we launched a public beta program that allows anyone to participate. It’s very easy to take part in the program. Simply sign up on our website or use your existing account and access the downloads section. At the bottom there is a special section for beta software releases.We would love to hear your feedback!

Today the available beta programs are our new Multimonitor functionality (you could have virtual monitors within your RDP session!) and our new Linux vWorkspace client. More beta programs will become available as times passes. Look for the public beta of Quest vWorkspace 6.2 soon.

A small note about our beta program: Quest Support does not support Beta and Release Candidate software via the normal support channels. Please email vWorkspace_beta@quest.com to provide feedback or obtain help with this pre-release software.

We look forward to welcoming you on our beta program soon!

Quest recently was awarded with two SYS-CON Virtualization Journal Reader Choice Awards. The SYS-CON Virtualization Journal Reader Choice Awards are known as the “Oscars of the Software Industry,” the SYS-CON Readers’ Choice Awards has been one of the industry’s most prestigious award programs for more than a decade. We won in both categories applying to “VDI”: “Best VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure” and “Best Desktop Virtualization Platform”. Of course we are extremely proud to get both of these awards and we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone that voted for us in this process!

Again, thanks!

Read more about these awards here: http://vworkspace.com/news/2009/05282009_Syscon_Readers_Choice.aspx.

Today, at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas, we released vWorkspace 6.1. There is no coincidence in us announcing 6.1 at the biggest Microsoft event geared towards virtualization management. Quest vWorkspace 6.1 is all about new and improved with various Microsoft virtualization products. My personal favorite is the integration of Quest vWorkspace 6.1 with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). Through this deep integration, Quest vWorkspace adds automation and improved management-level support, enhanced user experience and flexibility throughout the virtual desktop lifecycle, utilizing the unique characteristics of SCVMM.

SCVMM is not the only key Microsoft technology that vWorkspace integrates with. Quest vWorkspace 6.1 also has tight integration with Microsoft App-V, right from the vWorkspace Management Console. It does not stop there, either. Quest vWorkspace 6.1 also has advanced MSI support to allow customers to configure and deploy MSI to any amount of (Virtual) Desktops right from the vWorkspace Management Console. Finally, Quest vWorkspace’s unique “task automation” feature provides customers with a comprehensive configuration and maintenance framework to allow customers to take virtual desktop management to a new level.

Take a look at the new features of vWorkspace 6.1 on this webpage: http://www.vworkspace.com/aWinningPartnership !

For those of you who are keeping count: yes Quest vWorkspace 6.1 has been released only 3,5 months after our major 6.0 release. The desktop virtualization market is the most dynamic out there today and to stay in the lead we feel the need to keep providing customers with new and improved vWorkspace features as often as we can. We hope that you are as excited about Quest vWorkspace as we are! As always we value any feedback that you might have.Feel free to leave them in the comments.

In our encounters with customers we learn a lot about what they want to achieve with Quest vWorkspace. Many customer use vWorkspace to be able to centralize and consolidate their application and desktop workloads, whether that is VDI, Terminal Services or other desktops. This centralization and consolidation of application and desktop workloads brings customers many advantages all of which (directly or indirectly) save the customer a lot of money. Let’s be honest, there’s no mystery there: all of us are being asked to do more with less (probably with even less in these challenging economic times) so Quest’s vWorkspace unique characteristics and realistic pricing makes it to be the solution of choice for even more customers today.

Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch. Any project to to centralize and consolidate application and desktop workloads is a comprehensive one. To be able to effectively judge or predict when this project will start to save your company money, a ROI (return on investment) calculation is often required. To be effective and realistic such a ROI investment needs to take in account many, many factors ranging from the “estimated cooling load factor” to the cost of a VECD license. I think that it is safe to say that creating a good ROI analysis is a tedious and time consuming task.

Well, not anymore! Quest has made available a free Quest vWorkspace ROI calculator that allows you to perform a ROI calculation tailored to your business. The Quest vWorkspace ROI calculator takes all the necessary factors and costs into account and even allows you to have full insight into the numbers used. If you want, you can change our default assumptions and use your own numbers. We even have an option to compare the cost of vWorkspace when using the different hypervisors supported by vWorkspace!

The Quest vWorkspace ROI calculator is free for anyone to use with registration only being required if you need to save a reports from the tool.

Go ahead, try out the Quest vWorkspace ROI calculator.

I remember seeing a demonstration some time ago from a VDI vendor that showed they could do multimonitor. I also remembered thinking “so what? we can do that as well”. Over time I realized that I was wrong to assume that the advanced capabilities of Quest vWorkspace were that well-known.

So I decided to create a “blair-witch” demo: I just walked up to one of the cubicles that we have over at the Quest Desktop Virtualisation Group HQ and shot a demo of what vWorkspace can do today. My “cameraman” used a webcam as the camera so if it is not the quality you are accustomed to, you know why.

The important part is that the video shows what Quest vWorkspace 6.0 can do today. In the demo we are showing a vWorkspace session to a Windows XP virtual desktop that:

• uses 4 monitors, with the desktop being only on the first monitor (so not just spanning). You could even use monitors with different resolutions if you want to.
• shows how  applications are able to be monitor aware in a vWorkspace sessions (they can maximize to the monitor they are on)
• where we plug in and use different USB devices in this mulitmonitor vWorkspace sessions
• is playing a full HD movie

This is just a very brief demo that does not even show some of the other features of Quest vWorkspace 6.0 like graphics acceleration, user profile management, universal printing, virtual desktop shadowing or any of the other features…