VMware unveiled a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platform for remote users who want to use VDI with Sun Ray Software and virtual display clients. The new integrated desktop solution is ideal for wide area networks (WANs) and uses Sun's Appliance Link Protocol (ALP), which VMware and Sun report outperforms other display protocols in delivering virtual desktops in a WAN deployment with high latency and in delivering consistently better performance than competing display protocols.

With a VDI setup, virtual machines hold end users' PC environments; those virtual machines are hosted on servers in the datacenter.

"Companies are quickly finding that VDI offers a new way to work that increases security, improves manageability and even reduces costs. The Sun/VMware virtual desktop solution extends the traditional benefits of VDI by utilizing Sun's world class delivery protocol, highly secure and eco-friendly Sun Ray clients and streamlined management tools in Sun Ray Software," said Jeff Jackson, vice president of Solaris for Sun. "We're thrilled to be working with VMware to bring this best-of-breed solution to our customers."

In a VDI/Sun Ray deployment, customers benefit from not having an operating system and the thin client uses one-tenth the power of a traditional PC, says Sun, who will be directly supporting customers who invest in this joint offering.

A new VMware certification program also has been announced that will enable VMware VDI customers to choose from a wide variety of thin client devices officially certified from VMware. Sun Rays will be part of this new program.

VDI for Sun Rays Without Using Smart Cards

Sun's Dirk Grobler reports that a script has been created to deploy user-assigned VM's to Sun Ray users without having to use smart cards.

"This session type invokes a login dialog initially," he explains. "After the user has provided the credentials it triggers the usual lookup process through the vda-client and brings up the Windows session, trying to authenticate the user instantaneously."

Provision Networks and Sun Rays

Additionally, Grobler reports a session script that allows users to request and connect to VM's managed by the Provision Networks broker.

"...the only thing they really need is a specific kiosk session type and a login sequence against the Provision Networks broker. The rest is nearly identical with the way the Virtual Desktop Connector works," he writes. [...read more...]

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