This month VMware announced the latest release of their desktop virtualisation product, Horizon. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten really into this product so I decided to have a look at what’s changed.
vmware horizon
VMware Horizon 7 – First Impressions
VMware Horizon is a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) product which initially allowed provisioning of Virtual Desktops off a base image in an easily to manage fashion. Over time, VMware have added extra functionally, such as the ability to add Remote Desktop Services (RDS) servers.
Version 7 has added a number of interesting features and improvements. The one mentioned first in the release notes is Instant Clones. This is a technology I’ve been following for a while, ever since I read about it. Originally known as VMFork, it’s a technology to allow very rapid, almost instant, provisioning of Virtual Machines. Duncan Epping wrote a good overview of VMFork/Instant Clone back in 2014. Support for Virtual Volumes and Linux desktops are some of the other features that have been added.