VMware has had a fairly steady release cadence for the Horizon Suite, and they have a new point release every 3-6 months.  These releases don’t just correct bugs in the software – they add new features that help close the gap with Citrix.

The next release of Horizon doesn’t disappoint.  Despite being a dot-dot release, Horizon 7.0.2 is packed with improvements.

Some of the highlights of the release are:

Blast Improvements

• Further enhancements to the protocol
• Improvements in the GPU-encode/decode that significantly lower bandwidth and latency
• Improvements in the JPG/PNG codec to reduce bandwidth utilization by 6x
• vRealize Operations integration with Blast Extreme.  I can now see Blast statistics in the vROPs console
• UEM Smart Policies Integration with Blast.  I can now use the same PCoIP smart policies to control the Blast protocol.  This enhancement also allows administrators to set per-device policies so I can set different policies for Windows, Mac, Android, and IOS.
• A Raspberry Pi client

3D Graphics

• NVIDIA M10 support for high-density graphics acceleration use cases
• Intel vDGA support on the Skylake platform using 1:1 PCI-E passthru

Horizon RDSH

VMware has continued to close the feature gap with Citrix XenApp, and the latest release checks off a few more boxes.    The main features in this release are:

• Real-time Audio/Video support for RDSH
• USB Redirection for RDSH on servers running Windows Server 2012 R2
• Parameter Passthrough to RDSH Apps – this allows administrators to create custom links that pass parameters through to the application, such as command-line switches or authentication tokens, on launch.

Remote Experience

• Expanded Windows OS support, including support for Windows 10 LTSB, Anniversary Update, and Pro virtual desktops
• Flash redirection is now GA.  This allows flash content to be redirected to the local endpoint for rendering for a better experience.
• Windows Media Redirection support for Windows 10 and Server 2016
• Windows Media MMR support for Linux-based thin clients
• Client Drive Redirection is now supported on port 443.  Enhancements have also been made to improve performance on high-latency networks and to speed up file and folder listings
• DPI synchronization on native Windows clients to ensure crisp rendering of remote session
• Enhanced clipboard with support for Microsoft Word and Excel
• Clipboard size increased to 10 MB
• Ability to link one smart card to multiple accounts

HTML Access Improvements

• Time Zone Sync
• File transfer between remote desktop and endpoint using web client
• RTAV support for desktops and apps