Virtualization rivals VMware and Citrix today separately rolled out new management tools aimed at helping IT admins support the use of mobile devices in the enterprise, while also ensuring that company apps and data remain secure. The idea is to give IT shops greater control over which apps and services users can access from which devices, be they company-issued or employee-owned.
VMware's offering is the more ambitious of the two. The VMware Horizon Suite, a multipiece mobility platform designed to help on-the-go end-users securely connect to their data, applications, and desktops from any device, according to VMware.
VMware Horizon Suite is made up of VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon Mirage, and a newly released component called VMware Horizon Workspace, which lets IT admins allocate data, applications, or desktops to end users or groups instead of their devices, thereby enabling users to self-provision applications and services themselves, on the fly. Horizon Workspace also lets IT shops add new devices, users, or applications without having to reconfigure the devices or endpoints, according to the company, and the offering includes a centralized management UI for enforcing and managing user policies.
VMware has also upped Horizon View, the company's platform for building an enterprise VDI solution, to Version 5.2. The release includes simplified access to remote Horizon View desktops using any HTML5-capable browser, as well as support for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. Additionally, Horizon View 5.2 with Unity includes a new gesture-oriented interface, designed to provide a tabletlike experience in Windows mobile environments.
Finally, VMware has released VMware Horizon Mirage 4, the company's layered image management offerings designed to separate PCs into logical layers owned and managed by either IT or the end-user. The new version empowers IT to update individual layers without disruption to other layers, according to VMware, thus enabling end-user data and applications to be up to date.
Additionally, VMware has integrated Mirage with with VMware ThinApp application virtualization, seeking to enable smoother OS migrations and provide "roll-back" capabilities in case of failure or disaster. Finally, VMware Horizon Mirage 4 extends support for virtual Windows environments on Macs with VMware Fusion Professional.
VMware Horizon Suite is expected to be available this quarter.
Citrix's offering is called XenMobile MDM, part of a new Mobile Solutions Bundle for EMM (enterprise mobility management). It's also an enterprise mobile-device management solution designed to let end user easily connect to their apps and data from their device of choice, and it equips IT with tools to manage and enforce compliance requirements on users' mobile devices.
XenMobile MDM lets end-users self-provision their devices, while letting IT provision policies and apps to large groups of devices automatically. It also lets IT blacklist or whitelist apps, detect and protect against jailbroken devices, and wipe or selectively wipe devices that are lost, stolen, or out of compliance. It integrates directly with Microsoft Active Directory, PKI systems, and security information and event management tools.
This latest offering is part of Citrix's newly unveiled Mobile Solutions Bundle for Enterprise Mobility Management, alongside CloudGateway. The package's capabilities include:
- Role-based management, configuration, and security for both corporate and employee-owned devices
- Secure email, browser and data-sharing apps
- Containers for centralizing IT management, security and control of enterprise and third-party mobile apps
- A unified app store providing users access to all of their apps from any device
- Identity management, single sign-on, and scenario-based access controls
XenMobile MDM and the Mobile Solutions Bundle will be available starting on Feb. 25.
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