VMware Reveals Horizon 6 for a Better Application Experience

On April 9, 2014, VMware unveiled Horizon 6, the latest enhancement to the VMware Horizon offering which delivers, protects, and manages published applications and virtual desktops on a single integrated platform. Offering seamless, instantaneous, single platform access that takes full advantage of the cloud, it is exactly what end users have been looking for. Horizon 6 allows end users to reach new levels of innovation and help enterprises support IT and end-users in the mobile cloud era.

With an increasing number of access points including tablets, smartphones, and laptops, as well as employees taking part in the BYOD trend, IT departments are feeling pressured to deliver uncompromised access and high service levels to properly and safely accommodate these needs. To solve this issue, Horizon 6 provides innovations and upgrades to storage optimization, datacenter-to-device management, application delivery and flexible hybrid delivery, transforming the way enterprise applications and desktops run, maximizing cost-effectiveness to deliver, protect, and manage with ease. 

VMware Horizon 6 introduces new capabilities with a streamlined approach to centrally manage Windows applications and desktops, allowing updates to be made in a responsive and predictable fashion. Entire desktops or applications alone can be delivered in a flexible manner to end-users regardless of the use case. To accomplish this, Horizon 6 delivers capabilities virtually, for access from multiple devices and locations, physically, by syncing the desktop image to end-user laptops for both on and offline access, and securely, to support BYOD by delivering applications and content in a managed secure container. 

There are over 150 new features in VMware Horizon 6. A few highlights include:

·         Published applications and virtual desktops delivered through a single platform

·         A unified workspace for simplified access

·         Storage optimization with VMware Virtual SAN and delivery from the Software-defined data center

·         Closed-loop management and automation

·         Central image management of virtual, physical and employee-owned PCs

·         Hybrid cloud delivery

With the ability to deliver desktops and application services on your terms, provide virtualized or remote applications and desktops through a single platform to end users, and automate desktop setup and provisioning as well as self-service, VMware Horizon 6 brings ease and consistency to the data center. Applications and desktop services include RDS hosted applications, ThinApp packages, SaaS applications, virtualized applications, and many more. VMware Horizon 6 also allows users to quickly troubleshoot their environment, monitor, and pinpoint the root cause of errors without the guesswork typically involved with troubleshooting.

VMware Horizon 6 provides many benefits to SMBs and enterprises and extends the power of virtualization from the data center to the device, all within a single platform. Horizon 6 editions will ultimately replace Horizon Suite, incorporating the functionality of the suite modules and vCOPS into Standard, Advanced, or Enterprise versions of the Horizon 6 product. Horizon 6 is the evolution of customer feedback and technological improvements of VMware’s Horizon Suite.  vCenter Operations for View (V4V) was so well received that it is included with VMware Horizon 6 Enterprise licensing.