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Currently I am traveling across Germany meeting with customers and partners. This morning, just after I finalized preparation for a presentation. I decided to hop over to dabcc.com for a quick peak at what is going on in the SBC and virtualization community.

The first article that caught my eye was an article from a system provider in South Africa, OAS. The OAS was offering a test drive of a VMware VDI virtual desktop, connecting through VDM 2 and a XenDesktop based desktop.

To set the stage here. When I am traveling I use a MAC. If I need to access my VMware VDI desktop I can remotely connect with it using Safari. I also have a local Windows based virtual machine I can use with Fusion if needed. Using my MAC from the meeting room, here in Germany I fired up Safari and browsed over to the the OAS site for XenDesktop access.

At first it appears XenDesktop could not detect what client I needed.

When the client detection failed I decided to try the manual client detection.

The client detection failed so I decided to go ahead and download it. It took about five minutes to download the MACICA_OSX.DMG.zip file. Once it competed, I decided to install it. At this point I got a little confused as the installer said it was installing the ICA client for Presentation Server. Am I connecting to Presentation Server or XenDesktop? I figured I would find out once the client was installed an I get the chance to connect with a desktop. Unfortunately, that did not happen though. For some reason the ICA client could not be installed?

After this, I decided to compare the out of box experience for VDM 2 delivering a desktop. First I put the VDM 2 URL in Safari. I was asked to accept a certificate from OAS as I have never been to their site before. After accepting the certificate I was presented with a login.

After entering the login info and launching the tunnel I was presented with a list of desktops I was entitled to use.

After selecting my desktop and connecting my desktop session was successfully connected.


In all fairness, MAC support for VDM 2 is only experimental. I am unsure and have not checked if XenDestkop is planning to support MAC clients once its released. It may have been unfair of me to expect XenDesktop to work from my MAC?

Fu - sion – noun the act or process of fusing; the state of being fused. A long time ago, early in my career I never would have imagined I would need or want to use anything beside Windows. I started out as a Windows Server and Network admin. I really had no aspirations or interest in learning other operating systems. Over time, that changed as our business was looking for alternative and innovative ways to do things.

Ever since, I have helped customers find alternative ways to do things and focused on interoperability, primarily in the desktop space. Before joining VMware, I worked for a company that ran zero Microsoft products, no Windows Operating Systems and no Windows or Windows based applications. The also were thin. They had over 38,000 thin clients deployed globally. Talk about Green. They were Green before Green was in.

I was there for six years and was exposed to every alternative imaginable. They had quite a few Macbook pro’s running around. I myself did not have one, but was always enamored by their design. I never really thought it was practical for me to use one.

I live in a VM, I have VDI in my office and work from a virtual XP desktop day to day. I use offline files and folder redirection for syncing between my VMware assigned laptop and my VDI desktop. When I came to VMware, I got the standard IT assigned laptop that was about good enough to run Word and Outlook. Trying to run all the VM’s I needed for testing and generating content, plus doing my day to day work when traveling just sucked. I could not stand it any more. I really needed something with a a little more RAM and more importantly something faster than a 4200 RPM drive. Between the pain of the IT assigned laptop, falling prey to the continued assault of MAC commercials and the day to day glow of the Fusion team. I started looking into getting a Macbook pro, as I knew Fusion would be the ticket too bring it all together. I waited and waited till the Santa Rosa systems shipped. Then a few weeks back, I officially broke down and got a Macbook Pro. I would not quite say I was a switcher yet. I really was only looking for a well designed machine that had enough power to do what I needed when traveling, doing demos, testing etc.

The plan was to run XP by moving my assigned laptop image over, piece of cake by the way using converter, built inside ACE 2. Then, I figured I would load Vista since I had not seen Aero and needed to do some VDI testing. I had been doing VDI testing and playing with the desktop environment. I like it, I think its sweet. I like the sidebar etc.Before I loaded Vista, I played with OS X a little and got familiar with Expose, the dashboard etc. I have never used a Mac and was getting my bearings. Finally, I loaded Vista in a boot camp partition. Well, Aero 3D flip was a disappointment, too me its just a 3D alt-tab. OS X expose, and the dashboard are much more appealing.

At the end of the day, I needed XP and Vista and OS X was growing on me. In steps Fusion after all, I had been dying to play with our unity feature. I am just
blown away, thus far it exceeds my expectations and really is exactly what I was hoping for, seamlessly integrates the desktop experience with Unity. It’s simple to switch between Unity or a full screen Windows desktop. I can create snapshots of my laptop image. I run can run my boot camp partitions as VM’s. USB device support. If you are considering switching but still need to hang on Fusion is the ticket. It is the ultimate interoperability tool.

Fusion

Fusion

Fusion

Fusion Unity View of my XP desktop. Each application is independent . See Outlook in the dock!
Fusion

Fusion

Fusion