by
Brian Madden
That's "five-point-ten"—the version after 5.9—not "five-point-one-zero." This is the first release of Provision's product that had direct feedback from Rick Mack, Jeff Pitsch, Michel Roth, and Patrick Rouse. (Who are these guys?) According to Patrick, the four of them had a lot of feedback like “it would make customers very happy if the product did 'X' instead of 'Y'," and now the product has features based on their input.
New features of Version 5.10 include:
Web Portal (called "Web-IT")
- Web-IT migrated from ASP.NET 1.1 to ASP.NET 2.0
- Config files migrated from text to XML ( to support future automation)
- Integration with Juniper Secure Access
- Smart card support
Clients
- True multi-monitor support (different resolutions on different screens, monitor awareness, etc.)
- Updated Linux and Java clients
- PXE boot Linux client
- LiveCD Linux client
- All AppPortal client settings can be stored in a single configuration file
- Ticketing: Secure tickets will be issued per connection request, obviating the need to embed hashed user credentials inside .pit connection files
- Java client fully supported via Secure Gateway
Connection Broker & Management Console
- Support for Microsoft Hyper-V
- Support for Virtual Iron 4.3.x
- Dynamic Computer Group auto-expansion (Auto provisioning of new computers)
- Server provisioning
- Delete computers that have not been used in a specified number of days
- Real-time enumeration of running processes on managed computers
- Termination of running processes on managed computers.
- Power management of ACPI and Wake-on-LAN capable computers and servers
- MSI package deployment to computer groups or managed computers and servers
- Disable/enable computer groups or managed computers during maintenance cycles
- Unique computer names enforced across desktop groups and datacenters
- Display realtime license usage
- Retrieval and display of VM template sizes
- Wizard-driven managed desktop creation
- Streamlined SoftGrid / Microsoft App Virtualization integration
- Option to bypass proxy settings for console to broker communication
- Verification of sufficient disk space on target storage when provisioning servers or desktops
Task Automation for Power Management (multiple recurrence options or single instance)
- Power Off
- Power On
- Reset
- Suspend / Resume (for VMware and Hyper-V)
- Standby / Wakeup (for ACPI & WoL Devices)
Of course these features are on top of the existing features that were in
Virtual Access Suite 5.9 .
In terms of product and features, it seems that Provision Networks is doing it "right." They've put a lot of work into their protocol (which for all intents and purposes is now a fully viable alternative to ICA). And as I've written many times in the past, one of the real killer things that Provision does is that you can mix and match single instance VDI hosts in with your same multi-user Terminal Server hosts, both for published desktops and APPLICATIONS. (i.e. Single seamless published apps from single user VDI hosts.) Provision doesn't have any of the same B.S. problems that Citrix has with the XenDesktop / XenApp separate licensing / separate farms just to combine VDI and TS.
Provision's product looks strong in the lab and during testing. Now it's time to see whether they can make headway in the field.