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WPC: Dell Readies Version 6 of Dell Wyse WSM, Adds Server Provisioning
- By Gladys Rama
- July 09, 2013
- Stay up-to-date on the latest news from WPC here.
The next version of the Dell Wyse WSM desktop and application virtualization software will become available on July 22 via Dell's channel partners, the company announced on Tuesday at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Houston.
Dell Wyse WSM, which Dell is showcasing at WPC this week, sends desktop images and applications to endpoint devices, explained Dan O'Farrell, senior director of product marketing for Dell Cloud Client Computing, in a phone briefing this week.
"Think of it as, you've got all of your apps and desktop images stored in one place, and from that one place you can deliver what every person needs to see -- and only that -- whenever they log on to one of these endpoint devices," he said. "It provides all the security and ease-of-management of [virtual desktop infrastructure, or VDI] because you're doing stuff only in one place, yet it gives you the familiar performance and connectivity and all that stuff people are used to...because everything executes locally right on their desktop."
There are several reasons organizations might choose Dell Wyse WSM over traditional VDI solutions, according to O'Farrell.
"They may be running some demanding application that is processing-intensive, where VDI may not be quite good enough in terms of delivering a great user experience," he said. "Or they're hesitant to go through the build-out process of traditional VDI. WSM requires much less complexity and time and budget to build out initially."
Among the new capabilities coming to Version 6 is the ability to provision servers in addition to desktop applications. This capability will help organizations streamline their server deployment and management processes, as well as lower costs, according to Dell.
"Basically, similar to delivering desktop OSes, we can now deliver server OSes," explained Manish Bhaskar, director of product management for Dell Cloud Client Computing, in the phone briefing. "But these server OSes get executed locally on that physical platform, on that virtual platform."
Other new features include support for 64-bit desktop and server OSes, support for VMware ESX 5.1 and Microsoft's Hyper-V virtual machines, and improved integration with Active Directory. Additionally, Version 6 users can centrally manage and configure BIOS settings on pre-configured Dell Cloud Desktops, according to Dell's press release. Bhaskar provides a video demonstration of some of the new version's capabilities in this blog post.
Those who want to evaluate Dell Wyse WSM can do so via the starter kit, which is immediately available.
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