VMware has been revamping its products since the new CEO took over, returning its focus to what has been referred to as the “Second Wave” of virtualization. VMware View 3 is the new flagship for VDI, and was released in early December.

Early talk about VMware View 3 had it touted as being a competition crusher. Unfortunately some of the unique features discussed have been omitted in this release. Brian Madden discussed these in his 60 second review.

The features include:

• VMware Infrastructure 3
• View Manager 3
• View Composer
• ThinApp
• Enhanced RDP
• Virtual Printing

VMware Infrastructure 3

VMware Infrastructure 3 is well known and is still the leader in server virtualization.

View Manager 3

VMware View 3 builds upon VMware Infrastructure 3 to provide a desktop management solution

View Composer

View Composer in combination with View Manager provides the real benefit. View Composer allows you to create desktop images using clone linking. This feature certainly helps reduce the previous requirement for a lot of disk space. In my view VDI using a VMware VDI solution was not really feasible previously because the disk space required for each virtual desktop. This will certainly help organisations reduce costs further.

ThinApp

Thrown in for good measure is ThinApp, VMwares own application virtualization product. Read more about this in my first look review.

Enhance RDP

Currently VMware VDI relies heavily on the Microsoft RDP protocol. VMware View 3 has added some enhancements to the protocol to allow for additional USB support. The enhancements allow the use of flash drives, printers, and other devices. It does not support multi monitors, webcams, microphones or headsets yet.

Summary

VMware View 3 will certainly encourage users to stay with VMware. Most organisations who are working with server or workstation virtualization are using VMware already, so why would they move away now.

VMware View 3 comes in Enterprise and Premier versions. Enterprise will set you back $150 per concurrent desktop and premier $250.

If you already have ESX 3.5/VI3 Enterprise then the prices are even lower.

You can have a look at the features and test VMware View 3. I always recommend that you look at products and services for yourself and make up your mind whether it is suitable for your environment.

Are you using VMware View 3 yet, let us know what you think?