New features in Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure enable easy scaling of production installations from a single server up to a complete enterprise deployment by simply adding more servers as needed.
Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure now supports Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.04 based virtual desktops.
In addition, the new releases of Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Sun Ray Software now support Oracle Linux 6 and Oracle Solaris 11.
Enhanced Management and Scalability of Virtual Desktop Deployments
Key improvements in Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure 3.5 and Sun Ray Software 5.4 include:
o Enhanced management: Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c integration provides an end-to-end management solution, allowing organizations to improve service levels by proactively monitoring and managing the performance and availability of Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Sun Ray Software services and sessions, along with their enterprise applications and hardware, from a single console.
o Simplified deployment and easy scalability: With the new Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, administrators can seamlessly expand up to enterprise-scale deployments by starting with a single commodity server, containing all the necessary components engineered to work together, including a virtualization platform, local storage and session management. By leveraging a new local storage high availability feature, administrators simply add hardware to extend capacity as demand grows, without the need to “rip and replace” the existing deployment.
o Improved handling of virtual desktop data: The personal hard drive feature of Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, which allows administrators to separate user data and settings from virtual desktop images, has been enhanced to support pre-populating user data when new virtual desktops are created, improving login performance and simplifying backups. A new “application hard drive” type reduces server load by storing just a single copy of applications used by many users.
o Administrative enhancements: Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure administrators can now schedule the time and date when new virtual desktop templates are published, allowing for unattended updates during off-peak hours.
o Richer user experience: Dynamic virtual desktop resizing and rotation improves usability of virtual desktops on iPad and Android tablets. The new releases also provide enhanced multimedia playback for Windows 7 desktop environments with up to 720p High Definition (HD) video in Windows Media Player on Sun Ray 3 Series Client devices.
o Improved security: New IPsec option provides encryption levels up to AES-256, securing communication between Sun Ray Clients and Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Sun Ray Software servers. Linux-based deployments now provide smart card capabilities for Windows virtual desktops, including two factor authentication, PIN login, and identity and signature services.