Which VMware product should I use? (2) VMware desktop product.

There are three kinds of VMware products we can choose:
Customer Desktop Technology
Technical Desktop Technology
Enterprise Desktop Technology

1. Customer Desktop Technology
It is for the single user who wants to run software which is developed for different OSes on a single physical machine, and no needs to develop the software. Usually, we will only deploy one virtual machine in a single physical machine, because of the capability of customer desktop technology. In order to achieve this objective, the user will install VMware customer desktop product on existing OS, then import the OS required by the software to run the applications. For example, easily run Windows’ applications on your Mac, including high end games and other graphic applications, with VMware Fusion. Run Windows and Linux applications on Windows or Linux PCs with the free VMware Player.

2. Technical Desktop Technology
It is for the developers to reduce development time and reduce the QA and support costs. Consolidate multiple development and test workstations onto a single physical system by running multiple virtual machines. In order to achieve these goals, the developers have to install the technical desktop product on existing OS, then create multiple virtual machines. For example, one virtual machine for QA, one virtual machine for development, and one virtual machine for performance testing. VMware Workstation is a kind of technical desktop product, we can record and replay virtual machine activity to capture, diagnose, and resolve non-deterministic bugs and race conditions. On the development machine, if we mess up on one stage, we can easily go back to the last safe stage by using snapshot function and avoid the huge effort of roll back.

3. Enterprise Desktop Technology
This technology is used by the enterprises who have a lot of branches in different locations. Organizations use enterprise desktop technology to manage and support the needs of their extended, global workforce while strengthening security and control over corporate resources and sensitive information. VMware View (formerly VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)) lets organizations streamline desktop management & control, reduce operating costs and deliver complete desktop environments with greater application compatibility. VMware View is based on the Virtual Infrastructure 3, and it provides customerlized desktops to remote workers and is managed in local service center. Using VI3 in this way enables an IT organization to run multiple, unique, isolated virtual desktops on one physical server. These virtual desktops are made up of a single-user copy of OS as well as typical PC applications, and they present to the user an environment that looks, feels, and operates exactly like a standalone PC. Users access these virtual desktops through local devices such as thin clients, diskless PCs, or even regular PCs that are located on an individual user’s desk. Because these virtual desktops are actually running within the tightly managed and more easily controlled environment of the datacenter, they bring together many of the advantages of the centralized and decentralized computing models.