Quest vworkspace What s New Version 7.5
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What s New in Quest vworkspace 7.5 This document contains information about the new features in Quest vworkspace version 7.5. Read the material to familiarize yourself with the new features and review further information about them in the Quest vworkspace 7.5 product documentation. It is important that you review all of the documentation so that you understand any changes and known issues in relation to this release. Features Desktop Cloud Direct Hyper-V Support Hyper-V Catalyst Components Instant Provisioning New vworkspace Web Access RDSH Provisioning Upgraded EOP Audio Advanced Targets Two-Factor Authentication for all vworkspace Connectors Bi-directional Internet Explorer Redirection Improved User Profile Management Updated Platform Support Desktop Cloud Maintenance Mode MAC Address Management RDP Auto Tuning vworkspace Desktop Optimizer Managed Application Custom Properties Management of VM Network Settings Configure AppPortal through Group Policy Non-Admin install of the Web Access Connector
Greatly Simplified Golden Image Management What s Changed Desktop Cloud A new mode for vworkspace desktop groups, Desktop Cloud, delivers the best possible performance of virtual desktops with advanced load balancing schemes and allows customers to add capacity in only a matter of seconds. Desktop Clouds also make it possible to update hundreds or thousands of desktops to a new version of the corporate golden image in mere minutes. Along with HyperCache, HyperDeploy and Instant Provisioning these Hyper-V computer groups provide a platform where desktops can be easily provisioned or deleted in and out of the cloud in a near instant. Direct Hyper-V Support vworkspace now integrates directly with Microsoft Hyper-V to provided power management and provisioning of virtual machines. vworkspace uses the Hyper-V Catalyst Components to also monitor the load statistics of the virtualization hosts to properly load balance virtual machines and user connections across available hosts. Hosts can be added to increase capacity or disabled to redistribute virtual machines and user connections. Hyper-V Catalyst Components The Hyper-V Catalyst Components take Hyper-V performance and scalability to the next level. In the Hyper-V Catalyst Components patent pending technologies, such as HyperCache and HyperDeploy, enable IOPS reduction of up to 99 percent right out of the box; while enabling instantaneous provisioning of virtual desktops across many hosts simultaneously. HyperCache - HyperCache provides IOPS savings in virtual desktop deployments by caching the most used blocks of a golden image to memory. Virtual desktops deployed using HyperCache will request data from memory, only retrieving requested data from disk when not found in cache. If the data is pulled from the golden image, the data is then loaded into cache for the next request. This process continues until the cache is full. The default size is 800 MB, but can be set in the properties of each Hyper-V host. HyperDeploy - Allows virtual desktops to be provisioned instantaneously without waiting for the golden image copy to complete. In addition, HyperDeploy uses smart copy which only copies the data that is needed. HyperDeploy is designed to support
larger deployments by limiting network utilization while still allowing instantaneous provisioning. Instant Provisioning vworkspace now includes Instant Provisioning. Instant Provisioning provides extremely fast customization of Microsoft Windows based virtual machines in VMware and Hyper-V environments. No reboot is required to customize the desktop. The template virtual machine requires the following configurations in order for Instant Provisioning to function. It must be joined to the same Microsoft Windows domain the child VMs will subsequently join. The vworkspace Instant Provisioning Service must be installed, which can be found in the vworkspace installation media at \TEMPLATE_TOOLS\InstantProvisioning.exe or in the vworkspace installation folder of a connection broker. Installation of vworkspace PNTools to the template is highly recommended. New vworkspace Web Access Web Access has been reengineered to provide greater performance and scalability. In addition, it has been integrated with the vworkspace Management Console, and provided with a sleek new look. Below is a list of the features and upgrades that have been added to Web Access. Centralized management through the vworkspace Management Console. Citrix migration support: Integrates with Citrix farms to aggregate Citrix and vworkspace applications sets. New, cleaner Administrative interface. Simple re-branding. Completely configurable error, warning, and information messages. Support for multiple instances of Web Access on a single web server.
Added Web Access Site Manager, which is a new utility for staging Web Access web sites. IIS site names, used by end users to connect to Web Access, are now configurable. Web Access web sites can be grouped into one federated site. Web Access configurations are held in a single XML file and can be pushed from the vworkspace Management Console to the Web Access web site, or exported to a USB stick and walked to the Web Access server. RDSH Provisioning RDSH provisioning allows you to provision an RDSH (Terminal Server) from within the vworkspace Management Console from all virtualization platforms, bringing all the benefits of VDI to RDSH such as easier and faster deployment, IOPS reduction, storage reduction, single image management, and task automation. Upgraded EOP Audio New bi-directional audio which is now suitable for both LAN and WAN connections, and provides support for Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Office Communicator and other VOIP applications. Advanced Targets Advanced targets allow administrators to assign vworkspace applications, desktops and other resources in a context aware fashion. Advanced targets allow vworkspace resources to be assigned using any combination of target types. Next to existing target types, vworkspace has added new target types, such as two-factor authentication and trusted entry points. Two-Factor Authentication for all vworkspace Connectors Organizations can now leverage two-factor authentication without Web Access. RADIUS authentication can be set at the broker and required for all or some users connecting with any vworkspace connector. Advanced Targets can be used to configure the restriction. The user password and one time password (OTP) are handed off together in the password field of the Connector. The order of the two is configurable:
[ADPassword][OTP] OR [OTP][ADPassword] Bi-directional Internet Explorer Redirection Quest vworkspace Internet Explorer Redirection allows for an alternate version of Internet Explorer to be delivered to a user s access device. This helps facilitate Windows 7 migrations. Bi-directional Internet Explorer Redirection allows the publishing of a list of URLs (pattern matching supported) that will automatically launch a vworkspace managed application and open the URL in the virtual workspace. Additional URLs entered in the vworkspace managed application, that are not on the redirection list, will be opened on the user s access device. Improved User Profile Management vworkspace 7.5 has greatly improved user profile management with user profile auto-save, pre-defined user profile items for the Windows look-and-feel and common applications, and configuration import/export. Auto-save has been introduced to vworkspace User Profile Management. Previously, user profile items were saved only during user logoff from the virtual workspace. Now, items can be set to be exported during a user s session, at specified intervals, in addition to exporting data at logoff. The default interval for auto-save is one hour and is set through the properties of the silo. Pre-defined user profile items for commonly used applications and Windows settings have been added. User Profile Items can be imported and exported within the Management Console by right clicking the item and selecting "Import from XML" or "Export to XML". Updated Platform Support VMware vsphere 5.0 Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.6 Flash 11 ( EOP Flash Acceleration ) Internet Explorer 9 ( EOP Flash Acceleration )
WMP 12 ( EOP Multimedia Acceleration) Desktop Cloud Maintenance Mode Maintenance mode turns off auto-sizing in the Desktop Cloud to prevent new desktops from being created and prevents new connections to existing desktops in the Desktop Cloud. This allows administrators to perform maintenance, administrative tasks and troubleshooting. Maintenance mode will give administrators the option to delete any desktops that are unused or temporarily assigned. Desktops that are in use or permanently assigned will remain. MAC Address Management The MAC address of Hyper-V virtual machines that are members of a vworkspace computer group can be assigned by the Connection Broker. MAC address assignment prevents common DHCP and DNS issues that will arise in a Desktop Cloud where virtual machines are being deleted and re-provisioned on an on-going basis. Assigned MAC addresses are now associated with a computer s name. This allows the MAC address to follow a virtual desktop even after it has been deleted. An assigned MAC will be preserved 90 days after the associated virtual desktop is deleted. RDP Auto Tuning Quest vworkspace now includes automatic tuning of an RDP session which improves RDP responsiveness significantly. This only triggers when the experience settings on a Connector are set to LAN, WAN, or High Speed Broadband. vworkspace Desktop Optimizer The vworkspace Desktop Optimizer is a utility used to optimize Microsoft Windows for use as a virtual desktop, improving scalability and performance. It is typically run after installing Instant Provisioning on a master template. Managed Application Custom Properties Managed applications now support up to five custom properties to allow for easier organizing, filtering and sorting of the application list in the Management Console.
Management of VM Network Settings Configure or re-configure the network settings of a Hyper-V or SCVMM managed computer, including the VLAN ID and network name of the VM. This simplifies large deployments of vworkspace across complex networks. Configure AppPortal through Group Policy In addition to configuring AppPortal with the Config.xml file, you can now deploy settings to AppPortal using Quest provided ADM or ADMX policy files. Non-Admin install of the Web Access Connector Non-Admin install of the Web Access Connector is now available. It installs all EOP features except EOP USB. If executed while logged in as an administrator, all connector features will be installed. Greatly Simplified Golden Image Management vworkspace 7.5 allows you to update all virtual desktops to a new version of the golden image with a single click. Selecting Update Template in the properties of a Desktop Cloud will present the option to delete any unused, non-persistent desktops that are running an old version of the template. What s Changed Listed below are some of the features that have changed in vworkspace 7.5: VMware Linked Clones can now be provisioned to a separate datastore from their Master VM. New columns, Volume and Template, have been added to the vworkspace Management Console. The Volume column shows the storage volume associated with each member of a Hyper-V computer group. The Template column shows the parent template associated with each member of a computer group, this applies to all system types. Default credentials for deleting computer accounts from Active Directory can be configured at the farm level. If no default credentials are supplied, the computer group s administrator credentials are used to delete the computer account.
EOP Flash Acceleration now supports websites that use asynchronous java script. PNTools can now upgraded directly without requiring multiple reboots. Up to two.asc files can be added to the vworkspace Management Console. This allows Enterprise and Desktop Edition licenses to co-exist in the same farm. The Last import time stamp provides information to vworkspace administrators on the last time an import operation was performed for a computer group. vworkspace Data Collector now adds necessary rule exceptions to the Windows Firewall during installation. The Simple install now checks whether Microsoft Remote Desktop Session Host role is installed, and offers to install the vworkspace Session Host role, if found. Known Issues There are several known issues with the release of vworkspace. Please review the Known Issues section of the Quest vworkspace 7.5 Release Notes for further information.