Tech Shout!

On Monday, VMware Inc., the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems, has announced the public beta version of the VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition. VMware ACE is aground-breaking product that allows IT desktop managers to develop a standard PC environment including operating system, data and applications, wrap it with IT policies to protect the contents, package it into a virtual machine and deploy it to any managed or unmanaged PC endpoint.

The second generation of VMware ACE is designed to deliver the only controlled and easily managed enterprise-class virtualization product for deploying desktops to any PC, providing a rich virtual desktop environment to end users while maintaining the control required by the governing IT organization.

Jerry Chen, director of enterprise desktop platforms and solutions at VMware said, “IT administrators need tighter desktop control and management because they are tasked with supporting increasing numbers of workers who use equipment over which they have no control.” Chen added, “VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition offers the best of both worlds—IT administrators can easily manage thousands of users while effectively upholding corporate IT policies, and the end user can be productive with a desktop that has the identical look and feel of an IT-owned PC. It’s like handing out a secure, controlled laptop without the cost and hassle of provisioning new hardware.”

VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta includes a new desktop mobility feature, Pocket ACE, which makes possible installation of a full-featured desktop virtual machine to a portable media device such as a USB flash drive, portable hard drive or Apple iPod. End users can load a secure desktop onto the media device, plug it into a licensed PC or laptop and access the desktop from nearly anywhere with network connectivity.

The product also features the newly launched VMware ACE Management Server, which enables IT administrators to centrally track and manage thousands of VMware ACE desktops and apply standard policies to them from a single console. As the first production-ready VMware virtual appliance, the VMware ACE Management Server is available pre-installed, pre-configured and ready to deploy. In addition, VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta utilizes the latest VMware virtualization platform, enabling IT administrators to use VMware Workstation 6 to create and securely package VMware ACE virtual machines for deployment to end users who then can run them on any licensed PC or laptop.

“We have hundreds of laptops with different versions of hardware and software that are costing us huge dollars to upgrade and then certify with Health Canada each time we make hardware or software changes in order to adhere to Canadian healthcare regulations. With VMware ACE, we’re moving to certifying applications on hardware-independent virtual machines to streamline the regulatory compliance while ensuring application functionality, as well as enabling rapid deployment of these laptops for our mobile blood donation vehicles using USB keys with pre-loaded desktop configurations via the Pocket ACE feature,” said David Zavitske, IT technical support analyst in workstation management for Canadian Blood Services.

“With VMware ACE, my IT team can build an image that has just enough functionality to get the job done, but blocks any unnecessary functionality that would only open that machine up to trouble,” said Michel Labelle, network and terminal support manager for TSI. “For example, they can disable USB support so data can’t be pulled off with a USB keychain, or Web browsing so the trainee can’t go and download a virus by mistake.”

AT present VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition is in the public beta stage for Linux and Windows users and is available for download at www.vmware.com/products/beta/ace/. The product is expected to be generally available in Q2 of 2007. Pricing will be announced at the time of general availability.

VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta benefits are:

Streamlined enterprise desktop management: Supporting users on unmanaged hardware can require IT administrators to create, test, provision and migrate a separate desktop image for every flavor of PC hardware being supported. Administrators now can create standard desktop images using VMware Workstation 6, then deploy and manage them with the VMware ACE Management Server. This results in the ability to easily manage numerous virtual machines while reducing the number of images to create and enabling faster desktop deployments.

Simplified policy control: A single management interface provides centralized policy management of desktop virtual machines deployed on existing PCs. The VMware ACE Management Server supports dynamic updates of IT policies and manages virtual machine expiration dates, device and network access configurations and activation or deactivation of VMware ACE clients at any time.

Isolated environments: IT administrators can create secure and isolated VMware ACE desktop environments for use on existing PCs that are separate from the user’s personal settings. This allows administrators to manage and control the VMware ACE desktop without infringing on the user’s freedom to utilize PC features that might be restricted within the VMware ACE environment.

Easy backup and recovery: IT administrators can take snapshots of stable virtual machine configurations and roll back to the previous state quickly and easily.

Expanded operating system support: In addition to support for Windows Vista, VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta offers Linux host operating system support for Mandriva, Novell, Red Hat and Ubuntu.

Increased performance and memory support: VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition public beta leverages the latest virtualization platform from VMware, including support for USB 2.0, and supports virtual machines of up to 8 GB in size.