Lewan Technology Blog

As a VMware solutions provider, last week was an important week for announcements of changes to the VMware product line. In a series of launch events titled The IT Agenda for 2016: Enabling the Digital Enterprise, the VMware team from Palo Alto outlined a number of feature changes, major product revisions and improvements to licensing options. If you missed the launches, here's a recap of the highlights and changes you need to know about.

End User Computing

VMware announced the release of WorkSpace One, a digital workspace that spans desktops and mobile devices to provide:

• Self-service application stores
• Identity management and single sign-on
• Mobile device management and provisioning
• Data loss prevention (DLP) 

Horizon 7 / Horizon 7 Air, the next generation platform for on-premise application, cloud-based application and desktop delivery features key enhancements:

• App Volumes 3.0. Think of layering on top of a single image for all users, except there's no layers and each application is its own component.
• Hybrid-mode delivery. Cloud based control plane with customer dedicated infrastructures either in the cloud or on-premise.
• Just-in-time delivery with instant clone technology. Formerly Project Fargo, this awesome bit of tech brings rapid deployment of desktop images.
• Blast Extreme. A new remoting protocol to bring a rich experience to users across any network and on very low-cost end-points.

Software-Defined Data Center

VMware launched Virtual SAN 6.2, the 4th generation the fastest growing software-defined storage platform, including these new features:

• Deduplication and compression of data on all-flash configurations.
• Erasure Coding, think of this as RAID5 or RAID6 across the network providing improved resiliency while reducing storage requirements.
• QoS to protect workloads from the noisy neighbor.
• For more check out this post from Duncan Epping, What’s new for Virtual SAN 6.2?

• Simplified catalog of the more common licensing options reducing from six to three key editions: Standard, Enterprise Plus and vSOM Enterprise Plus.
• If you're a vSOM Standard, vSOM Enterprise, or vSphere Enterprise customer, there is a promotion to upgrade to vSOM Enterprise Plus at a reduced cost for a limited time - be sure to take advantage!
• VMware vCenter now includes 25 licenses of vRealize LogInsight - big data benefits for all your vSphere logs.
• Questions? vSphere and vSphere with Operations Management Packaging & Pricing 2016 FAQ

These are exciting times in both the data center and end user computing spaces! What's your IT agenda for 2016? How are you leveraging new technologies to enable more agile infrastructures and improved work experiences for your users?

Watch for yourself, register here to view the entire VMware 2016 Launch on demand.

Lewan Technology is a VMware Premier Solutions Partner headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with certified technical professionals in server virtualization, business continuity, desktop virtualization, hybrid cloud, management operations and software-defined storage. Our team of consultants is your strategic partner to keeping IT relevant and enabling components of your business - !