This week VMware released a major update to Horizon (View).

• Horizon 7.1 Release Notes
• VMware Horizon 7.1 Is GA! What’s New – Part 1
• VMware Horizon 7.1 Is GA! What’s New – Part 2
• Horizon 7.1 Download Page

I’ve been using Horizon 7.1 for a few weeks and I wanted to share my Top 3 features with you. They are in no particular order.

1. VMware Horizon Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business (Beta)

This is something I’ve been waiting for, for a long time. With the Horizon Desktop I use internally in VMware, this is the only thing that has been stopping me from going ‘all in’ 100% VDI. Until now, I’ve been making my Skype for Business calls via the client which is installed on my laptop. Now I can finally move everything inside the virtual desktop, including my voice and video calls.

Making Audio/Video calls in a virtual desktop has a long history of pain which goes back to my early days here at VMware. If you were to install the Skype For Business client into a virtual desktop environment and use it as if it was installed on your local PC/Laptop, you encounter an issue which we term ‘Media hairpinning’. What happens here is, all of your Audio/Video traffic gets streamed via the virtual desktop infrastructure, rather than going point-to-point or ‘end user’ to ‘end user’. For example, we might have two users on the West coast of the US. Their Horizon environment is located on the East coast. When they Skype called each other, User A’s  Audio/Video would travel from their end point on the West coast, to their virtual desktop on the East coast, to User B’s virtual desktop on the East coast and then to User B’s end point on the West coast. (See below)

The distance that the traffic has to travel can cause Audio/Video performance to be really poor. What we ideally want is for the Audio/Voice traffic to got direct, from User A to User B, point-to-point.

And this is essentially what the VMware Horizon Virtualization Pack for Skype for Business does for us.

As mentioned above, this feature is currently in Beta. Do not let that deter you, I’ve been using it for a little while and it seems to be functioning really well. When testing it with my colleagues, they are unable to tell if I am calling from my laptop or within my Horizon desktop. From the end user perspective, there are a few things that I’ve noticed which have slightly different behavior from the native client. For example, my mute button on my headphone lead no longer mutes me in the client and when someone is talking in a group chat the little window which usually shows the profile photo of who is talking doesn’t seem to update. Honestly, this isn’t a problem for me.

If you use Skype For Business within your company, I highly recommend that you test it out even whilst it is in Beta. The requirements are very basic and configuration is very straight forward unlike the old LyncVDI Plugin.

You can read more about it here: https://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2017/03/vmware-horizon-virtualization-pack-skype-for-business-beta.html and download the software and documentation here: https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/beta/horizon-skype4business-beta/overview

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and has been for a week or so now. I just want to shamelessly plug three sessions that I am involved in this year, so you can all go and vote for them! Don't forget to vote for all of the other great session that have been proposed. This is your chance to make VMworld 2013 what you want it to be.

#4815 Demistifying VMware Mirage – Tips and Tricks for Success

Wondering what Mirage really does, how it works, and how to successfully design and implement Mirage for your company or organization? VMware's Global Professional Services team will present a technical walk-though of a real-world end-to-end design & implementation of VMware Mirage. Hear first-hand how VMware Architects address technical and operational challenges, such as server and storage sizing, networking, and other critical VMware Mirage design elements. The team will show real-world architecture examples and share their lessons learned and best practices enabling you to be successful in deploying VMware Mirage. 

#5249 PCoIP: Sizing For Success

Baffled by the PCoIP sizing minefield that accompanies an Horizon View deployment? No idea where to start? Join Chuck and Simon as they give an introduction to PCoIP, helping you understand important characteristics of the protocol that need to be considered when sizing for PCoIP. The session will then guide you through the critical steps required to optimize, measure and calculate PCoIP bandwidth requirements tailored to your environment.

#6045 EUC Experts Panel – Successful Implementations

Performance issues with virtual desktops? Experiencing issues with virtualized apps? Unsure how to scale your virtual desktop environment? What about Horizon Workspace and Mirage? Where do they fit into your desktop strategy? Come meet EUC Architects from Global Services Engineering as they answer your questions and explain their experience with designing and implementing some of the largest and most complex EUC environments to date. This helps customers realize the full potential of their EUC investment and is responsible for solving some of the thorniest problems and toughest design challenges. The panel includes experts in all of the Horizon Suite products, as well as critical infrastructure support elements for EUC such as Active Directory and anti-virus, storage solutions, networking, load balancing and many others. Come and ask the experts for help with some of the challenges you are facing and let them share their field experience and lessons learned to help you in all your EUC endeavors.

VMware currently have A LOT of open positions that are focus around VMware's End User Computing technologies. There are both pre and post sales roles going around the world. 

The following link is a search of all of the open positions that are EUC focused. http://jobs.vmware.com

If you can see a role that you are interested in, drop me a email via my Contact Me page and I'll make sure your resume/CV gets to the right people. 

Now that yesterdays VMware EUC announcement hysteria has subsided, I thought this would be a good time to make my own VMware EUC announcement. (For those of you who were under a rock yesterday, here is my favorite post talking about What's new in View 5.1 (Beyond Marketing).

After nearly two years of delivering customer projects with VMware Profesional Services (PSO), I have been given the opportunity to join VMware's EUC Global Center of Excellence (CoE). This is a move I am really excited about.

So what will I be doing?

From my understanding, I will be working closely with VMware's EUC products, both old and new. Testing out our new products, creating IP and enabling the field. So there should be plenty of lab time, which is never a bad thing. I will also have the opportunity to provide feedback about our products directly to the engineering teams. Another large part of the role is to present at VMWorld, PEX and other conferences and seminars.

If you are not aware of VMware's EUC product suite/vision, take a look at the following video.

Pretty cool stuff hey?!?

I am hoping that this move will also give me more time to blog, to help get more material out there for you guys. And it will also mean less travel, Happy Days!

I have a couple of months left to finish off my currently View project, then I will be moving over on July the 1st.

Cannot wait!!