VMware Horizon Community
zutroi
Contributor
Contributor

View Manager Administrator Role for ThinApp

Hi,

in our setup we want to delegate administration of desktop pools to different departments, but keeping main administration with just some superadmins.

Checking available roles and privileges in View 4.6, it seems right way to achieve this is creating a different folder for every departments, then make some AD groups "Inventory Administrators" on that folder: this way every department can create,view and manage only his desktop pools.

It works nice, but we noticed that only superadmins can actually use ThinApps, I mean users of any  other role miss both "ThinApp" tab  in "Inventory" and "thinapp configuration", even if configured as Administrators on a specific folder.

The problem is this way departments can not add any thinapp to repository and (worst of all) can not deploy existing thinapps (ones already present in repository) to their pools.

We tried every role/permission combination and checked manuals an forums without success.

So, to manage or deploy thinapps a user must be an administrator  on /root folder... but this let the user mess up or even delete pools of other users.

Why having permissions and roles at all if a poweruser must bother a superadmin everytime he needs to deploy MS Office on one of his pool?

There's any solution to this problem? Are we doing something wrong?

Thanks all for any hint on this.

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11 Replies
nes007
Contributor
Contributor

I Have noticed the same issues in our installation and it would be great if VMware would separate that feature out as another privilege.

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Linjo
Leadership
Leadership

Please file an SR so we can get this fixed.

// Linjo

Best regards, Linjo Please follow me on twitter: @viewgeek If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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zutroi
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Neil for reporting same problem and thanks Linjo for suggestion, I just opened a SR.

I was wondering if I was doing something wrong, since I think this is a must have feature for enterprise installations, like our University campus.

This issue is preventing us from deploying a lot of vdesktops, since we cannot delegate control to other departments, by now we can use View only on some central offices.

Next 1 or 2 year we are planning to deploy about 3000 desktops and many students labs (50-100 desktops each), we cannot check and manage different applications on every lab, f.e. applications used in a chemistry lab are totally different from ones used in a philosophy lab...

On site IT guys don't like to lose control of their PCs, since they usually manage and update their department applications (often custom ones).

Managing all thinapps centrally is not feasible in this scenario, it would costs more than having normal PCs managed by local technicians.

View is a great product, getting better every new release... I hope you will find a solution to this and it will be perfect.

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CedriG
Contributor
Contributor

Same problem here.

Is there a workaround or do we have to wait for the next release?

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zutroi
Contributor
Contributor

No, sadly no workaround by now

This is the vmware support answer to my SR:

I have now submitted a Feature Request for the Thinapp Administrator role to be included in View.

At present we have all the details we need for the developers to investigate this issue and so I will archive this case.

I have no timeline for when this will be included in View, probably too soon for the next release, so more than likely a future release. E.g. View 5.0 is tentatively scheduled for Q3/Q4 of 2011.

If you would like to follow up at any time, you can call in and quote the SR number, we can then check the status of the Feature Request.

Of course, if there are any other issues, please do not hesitate to open a new Support Request and we will be happy to assist.

Kind Regards,

I hope they fix this issue ASAP, I'm very disappointed that such a feature is missing. Vmware stresses on using thinapps for everything, but without delegation/dedicated role any feature is totally useless in a big enterprise installation...

I may be wrong, but if other users need this role perhaps they can fill a SR too, hoping this will increase feature request priority.



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CedriG
Contributor
Contributor

Ok, thanks for the update.

I will fill an SR hoping that that will bump the priority.

Regards

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jsopper
Contributor
Contributor

it would also be nice if Folders in View had a depth greater than one.

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alexanderjn
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

zutroi / CedriGi - Any news on this? I just came across this in our pre-pilot setup. I'm also at a University with multiple Desktop admins and (plus an annoying issue with the View service account in vCenter) would like to know how/if this is getting prioritized.

Thanks

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zutroi
Contributor
Contributor

Sadly no news on this.

In support answer (one I pasted above) they said me this feature *may* be included in next View release... I hope so, since we're stuck on this.

Delegation of roles in a big structure is like politics, we can't proceed on VDI until every tech guy has his little slice of power as before...

If you are interested in fix this issue, please fill a support request, I think this is the only way to prioritize this problem.

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beckerbroom
Contributor
Contributor

There is now a KB that you can subscribe to and be notified of when this feature does become available:

KB 2047850 - View Administrator users are unable to modify the ThinApp configuration and ThinApps options

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2047850

Thanks,

-Craig

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vRickE
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Well 5.2 and still no option this is a bit stupid.... we are in the process of locking down view admins on our deployment and we don't want to assign Administrator roles to everyone that manages view. I really hope vmware does something soon about it.

@rickespada
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