Technical data

Solution Technology Overview

VMware Horizon View 5.3 and VMware vSphere for up to 2,000 Virtual

Desktops Enabled by Brocade Network Fabrics, EMC VNX, and EMC Next-

Generation Backup

 Thin provisioning support—VMware Horizon View 5.3 enables

efficient allocation of storage resources when virtual desktops

are provisioned. This results in better utilization of the storage

infrastructure and reduced capital expenditure

(CAPEX)/operating expenditure (OPEX).

 Desktop virtual machine space reclamation—VMware Horizon

View 5.3 can reclaim disk space that has been freed up within

Windows 7 desktops. This feature ensures that the storage space

required for the linked clone desktops is kept to a minimum

throughout the lifecycle of the desktop.

 Requires the VMware Horizon View 5.3 Bundle. The VMware

Horizon View Bundle includes access to all View features

including vSphere Desktop, vCenter Server, View Manager, View

Composer, View Persona Management, vShield Endpoint,

VMware ThinApp, and VMware View Client with Local Mode.

The VMware Horizon View 5.3 release introduces the following

enhancements for improving the user experience:

 A virtualized graphics processing unit (GPU) to support hardware-

accelerated 3-D graphics

 Desktop access through HTML5 as well as the iOS and Android

applications

 Support for Microsoft Windows 8

Note: What’s New in VMware Horizon View 5.3 provides more details.

VMware View Composer 5.3 works directly with vCenter Server to deploy,

customize, and maintain the state of the virtual desktops when using linked

clones. Desktops provisioned as linked clones share a common base

image within a desktop pool and therefore have a minimal storage

footprint. The base image is shared among a large number of desktops. It

is typically accessed with sufficient frequency to use EMC VNX FAST

Cache, where frequently accessed data is promoted to flash drives. This

behavior provides optimal I/O response time with fewer physical disks.

View Composer 5.3 also enables the following capabilities:

 Tiered storage support to enable the use of dedicated storage

resources for the placement of both the read-only replica and

linked-clone disk images

 An optional stand-alone View Composer server to minimize the

impact of virtual desktop provisioning and maintenance

operations on the vCenter server

This solution uses View Composer 5.3 to deploy dedicated virtual desktops

running Windows 7 as linked clones.

VMware View

Composer 5.3