Jumping VDI

Hi,

Sun VDI 3.1 Early Access has been released last Tuesday. This is not just a minor update, but we have added a number of new things that might be of interest for people:

• Microsoft Hyper-V support:
  Sun VDI introduces Hyper-V as a new desktop provider. Virtual desktops are provisioned using ZFS, which allows a fast deployment based on ZFS cloning and copy-on-write semantics. Far more scalable than any other VDI storage solution in the market.
• Microsoft RDS support:
  It is possible to run mixed environments of VDI and Terminal Services. All under the same management infrastructure.
• VirtualBox 3.0.x
  Most prominent feature is the guest multi processor support (guest SMP)
• Template Management module
  Template management has been introduced for better keeping track of template revisions and controlling the staging and rollout of new template revisions.
• Integrated webconsole for VirtualBox
  The webconsole allows to do in-place modifications of templates and desktops with the management UI. It can run in any browser that supports Adobe Flash.
• Host and Storage Maintenance
  There is a new module that takes care of controlled outages of hosts and storages. You schedule outages and suspend running virtual desktops or migrate them to other available hosts.  
• Virtual Networking
  There is now the option of isolating the virtual desktop network traffic per desktop pool. Or you can assign multiple subnets to virtual desktops.
• RDP client configuration per desktop pool
  The access for Sun Ray clients can now be configured on a per pool basis. All RDP configuration settings can be controlled.
• Sun Desktop Access Client
  There is a new client, the software version of the Sun Ray included in the release.
• Flash acceleration for MS Windows XP and 2003 desktops
• USB redirection for MS Windows XP desktops and all hosted VirtualBox guest OSs

These are just the highlights. Many more things went into the EA. Just have a look. The download is here. Documentation can be found on the VDI Wiki. If you have some questions or issues you can contact us on the VDI forum. And of course your feedback is important to us. Please take the EA survey, it takes just 5 minutes. Loads of the features are there because of your feedback.

Cheers,

Dirk