VMware Horizon 8 (2106)

VMware have released a new version of VMware Horizon 8 (2106), and this release is general available from August 2021. This is a major release, so I hope you like this article I put together. VMware have made some huge improvements in this release, which customers/partners are going to benefit from. HINT – If you are using Nvidia vGPU driver 13 supports VMware Horizon 8 2106. I have in this article also included the new features of Horizon Cloud service for 2106 IBM Cloud, AWS, Azure. Lets dig into what is new.

What is new in VMware Horizon 8 (2106)

VMware Horizon 8 2106 provides the following new features and enhancements

VMware Horizon Connection Server
VMware Horizon Agent for Linux
VMware Horizon Agent for Windows
VMware Horizon GPO Bundle
VMware Dynamic Environment Manager 2106
VMware Unified Access Gateway 2106
VMware Horizon Clients 2106 for Android, Linux, iOS, Mac, Windows, HTML Access

VMware Horizon Cloud services 2106

VMware Horizon 8 2103

VMware have released a new version of VMware Horizon 8 (2103), and this release is for now general available from March 2021. This is a major release, so I hope you like this article I put together. VMware have made some huge improvements in this release, which customers/partners are going to benefit from.

HINT – If you are using Nvidia vGPU (on-prem) there is currently no driver support for Horizon 8 2103.

I have in this article also included the new features of Horizon Cloud service for 2103 IBM Cloud, AWS, Azure.

Lets dig into what is new.

What is new in VMware Horizon 8 (2103)

VMware Horizon 8 2103 provides the following new features and enhancements

VMware Horizon Connection Server
VMware Horizon Agent for Linux
VMware Horizon Agent for Windows
VMware Horizon GPO Bundle
VMware Dynamic Environment Manager 2103
VMware Unified Access Gateway 2103
VMware Horizon Clients 2103 for Android, Linux, iOS, Mac, Windows, HTML Access

VMware Horizon Cloud services 2103

AMD (NvV4-series) and Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD)

Hi all

I am excited to share this is a blogseries around better understanding the value of NVv4-series in Azure and I will cover different views. From what NVv4-series is, which software vendors it works with and which remoting technology it can be used with, and I also cover later in a blogpost how you can scale and run different workloads and utilize the AMD CPU/GPU and how you can monitor and troubleshoot.

In this blogpost i will cover the overview of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop and how it can be hardware accelerated (GPU) enabled with AMD CPU/GPU more specific the NVv4 series in Azure.

You will learn what offerings Microsoft have with Windows Virtual Desktop high level and where you can access the NVv4-series in which Azure datacenter. The process which is required to start and how you can start enabling your VM’s with graphics acceleration.

I will also cover what the difference is with the difference NVv4 instances and the use cases how to use them with Windows Virtual Desktop.

Windows Virtual Desktop have now been GA for almost a year, and it have been a huge success globally. NVv4-series also have 1 year anniversary as it was GA in 4th March 2020, which I covered in a blogpost here

Case study – NVv4, Azure, Citrix BIM customer TBI

Last March 2020, I wrote about the availability of the AMD NVv4-series powered by AMD CPU/GPU. I have been working with NVv4-series and I am excited to share one of the customers, I have helped are now an official reference customer for NVv4-series.

TBI, is a dutch BIM customer, I have been working together with a couple of years designing their on-prem which is now a hybrid platform. They are the first official customer case study using AMD NVv4 instances in Azure together with Citrix Cloud. They have been using VDI for several years and been one of the leading innovators using high end graphics for VDI for their BIM users. Microsoft, Autodesk, Citrix uses them as reference customer through the years.

NVIDIA vGPU Software 12

It’s time to plan updating your NVIDIA Enterprise GPUs. NVIDIA vGPU Software 12 is now GA.

NVIDIA vGPU software includes vWS, vCS, vPC, and vApps.

If you got any of followin NVIDIA GPU’s: M6, M10, M60, P4, P6, P40, P100, V100, T4, RTX6000, RTX8000, A100, A40, RTXA6000.

If you are interested in a quick overview of which NVIDIA enterprise GPU is supporting which hypervisor, Guest os and remoting technology, I highly recommend you check out this link from NVIDIA that provides the NVIDIA vGPU software product support matrix.

NVIDIA vGPU software 12 is supported until January 2022.

NVIDIA vGPU software 12 is a new-feature branch support. If you are looking for Long-Term support branch latest release is 11.x or 8.x

I this article, I am also covering which Public Cloud instance is available with NVIDIA GPUs and which license is BYO or provided by the public cloud provider such as Azure, AWS, GCP, Alibaba.

For a list of validated server platforms, refer to NVIDIA vGPU Certified Servers.

Important note for EUC (Citrix/VMware customers):

NVIDIA vGPU 12.0 is supported with VMware Horizon 2006 (8.0), 7.13, 7.12, 7.11, 7.10, 7.9, 7.8, 7.7, 7.6, 7.5, 7.4, 7.3, 7.2, 7.1, 7.0
NVIDIA vGPU 12.0 is only supported with Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops (LTSR) 7.15, 7 1912, (CR) 7 2006, 7 2012

This release includes the following software:

NVIDIA vGPU Manager version 460.32.04 for following hypervisors. (Citrix Hypervisor, VMware vSphere, RHEL KVM)
NVIDIA Windows driver version 461.09
NVIDIA Linux driver version 460.32.03

New Features in Release 12.0

Support for NVIDIA^® GPU Operator
Support for NVIDIA^®NVSwitch™ on-chip memory fabric
Miscellaneous bug fixes

Hardware and Software Support Introduced in Release 12.0

Support for the following GPUs:
- NVIDIA A100 HGX 80GB
- NVIDIA A40
- NVIDIA RTX A6000
Support for Windows 10 October 2020 Update (20H2) as a guest OS
Support for Red Hat CoreOS 4.7 as a guest OS
Support for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2