Hypervisor Flexibility
Parallels RAS supports Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, and hyperconverged infrastructures such as Nutanix Acropolis, Scale Computing HC3, HPE, Citrix Hypervisor, and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). Parallels RAS can create and manage virtual machines (VMs) from different hypervisors under the same infrastructure, offering administrators extended flexibility when implementing VDI solutions.
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In the VDI Agent Information dialog, click Add to add the VDI host to the Parallels RAS farm. (If your VDI host is running Nutanix Acropolis or KVM and you see a warning message that Nutanix Acropolis (or KVM) was not found, ignore it and continue). Infrastructure (Parallels VDI) using the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers software and the Quest vWorkspace virtual desktop management suite. While this guide helps you get Parallels VDI up and running, it does not replace the existing. In the VDI Agent Information dialog, click Add to add the VDI host to the Parallels RAS farm. (If your VDI host is running Nutanix Acropolis or KVM and you see a warning message that Nutanix Acropolis (or KVM) was not found, ignore it and continue). Parallels Desktop is the easiest, fastest, and most tightly integrated app for running Windows apps or the Windows desktop in Apple OS X.
Simplified VDI Management
Parallels RAS automatically generates and deploys VDI desktops on demand using customized templates, allowing administrators to create and deploy guest VMs on the fly. After a template is created, the IT team can instantly deploy several VMs by selecting the template and entering the number of VMs. Create a virtual desktop once and replicate it as many times as needed. Read More.
By utilizing linked clones, the IT team can replicate an already available virtual disk from an existing VM instead of launching a whole new full VM. This allows multiple virtual machines to share the same software installation, saving disk space and deployment time.
By Jack Madden and Kyle Johnson
Parallels today announced the release of Parallels Desktop for Mac 14. Gabe covered the maturity of Parallels Desktop 13 (and VMware Fusion 10) a year ago, so we wanted to take a look at the new features in Parallels Desktop 14 and see what else has changed.
As it turns out, most of the features that Parallels is touting this year are incremental improvements. That’s not a bad thing, just a sign of a mature category. However, we couldn’t help but think about the changing role of client hypervisors.
What’s actually new in Parallels Desktop for Mac 14?
Unsurprisingly, Parallels 14 will include macOS Mojave support once the OS goes into GA, including for everyone’s favorite new feature, Dark Mode.
Parallels For Mac Free Download
Beyond that, Parallels for Mac 14 largely focuses on performance increases, such as claimed 80% faster app launching and 10% quicker boot time. Still, there were some new features we liked. In particular, virtual machine snapshots are now approximately 15% smaller, though the press release is careful to note that users upgrading to the new release won’t see an immediate reduction in VM size, as the optimizations happen in the background. Parallels Desktop 14 also now includes a Free Up Disk Space dialog that will suggest additional space-saving actions across multiple VMs.
Lastly, we liked the support for pressure sensitivity in apps through Windows Ink, which can be done using both the Macbook trackpad and a Wacom tablet.
The evolution of client hypervisors
Last year, Gabe wrote: “It's safe to say that while this area of desktop virtualization isn't the sexiest, there are still enough demands for VMware and Parallels to continue investing in the platforms.” This got us thinking about the changing roles of client hypervisors, especially because we spent a lot of time on the topic (both bare metal and type 2) from around 2008 to 2012.
Among the many use cases that came up was BYO MacBooks, the idea being that IT could provision a fairly standard corporate VM, and then be free to ignore all the different, unfamiliar aspects of Macs. Now, this was never the best approach, since users choose Macs for the software UX, not just the sleek hardware.
Fortunately, native Mac management has been exploding in the enterprise in the last few years. Parallels’ own offering, in the form of an extension for Microsoft SCCM, came out in 2013. (It can also manage Parallels Desktop.)
The more important client hypervisor use case, of course, is for Mac users that need to also run specific Windows-only applications—Native Mac management could reach complete saturation, but this use case will still be around. Also, don’t forget that Parallels has yet another option here, Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS). (We covered the 2015 acquisition that turned into RAS as well as the most recent update in July.)
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So the result is that thanks to Parallels Desktop, Mac Management for SCCM, and RAS, they can offer a whole array of options: Do you want to deploy VMs, or manage Macs natively? If you’re going with native management, do you still need some Windows apps? Would they be better running locally or remotely? Whatever happens in enterprise Mac trends, they’re ready.
Parallels Desktop 12 For Mac
Along those lines, this summer we heard rumors about Apple moving Macs over to proprietary ARM-based chips. Surely that would result in a big engineering project for Parallels (and other client hypervisor vendors) to create a new offering; and there would likely be a performance hit that would change the math of when you would want to go local versus remote for your Windows apps. But again, Parallels seems like they would be ready, no matter which way this goes.