Virtualisation Toolkit

VMware View 3 gets virtual printing

Tags:
Desktops,
Print,
Printer,
Deployment

Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 04 Dec 2008 14:34 GMT

The German print-management company ThinPrint has plugged its technology into VMware's updated View virtualisation suite, aiming to simplify printing from multiple virtual desktops.

VMware View 3, launched on Tuesday, is a new version of the company's virtual infrastructure suite that promises to let users detach their desktop from a specific physical device or location. It then generates a personal view of a desktop, applications or data, called 'myView'. The virtual desktop images are hosted in the datacentre, meaning IT personnel can use the package's management platform to provision and manage up to thousands of instances of the virtual desktops.

On Wednesday, ThinPrint announced that its '.print' technology has been integrated into VMware View 3, meaning companies don't have to deploy printer drivers to individual virtual desktops but can allocate printers through the network as needed.

According to a ThinPrint statement, the technology can "achieve data compression of up to 98 percent [and] reduce administration overhead, allowing simplified deployment of virtual desktops". Auto-detection of a local printer from the client is also included.

In addition, ThinPrint released a .print Engine for VMware View, for customers who use dedicated print servers in virtual desktop environments.

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In addition to virtual printing, the VMware View 3 update added five new products and technologies to the virtual desktop package. It announced VMware View Composer, which provides 'Linked Clone' technology to quickly generate virtual desktop instances from a master image. The production of these clones consumes up to 70 percent less storage space, VMware said in a statement. The impressions of the desktop can then be centrally controlled in VMware's View Manager.

VMware ThinApp promises to make packaging and deployment of applications simpler by running applications independently of the host operating system. Offline Desktop, which VMware said is an experimental feature, provides the ability to securely move virtual desktops between the datacentre and a local laptop or desktop.

Unified Access is a completely new feature of VMware View Manager 3 and gives desktop administrators a single management platform for multiple types of sessions. VMware View Manager 3 connects to desktop environments hosted on VMware Infrastructure, or user sessions running on Windows Terminal Servers, or on physical PCs such as blade PCs.

Multimedia Redirection is intended for times when the virtual software is running multimedia applications which are a heavy load on computer resources. This technology allows such multimedia software to run locally on a specific user's system, so the application does not consume power that is intended for use on the network.

VMware View 3 is available immediately, with the Enterprise Edition priced at $150 (£100) per concurrent connection, and the Premier Edition priced at $250.