Free Trial: Wanova Mirage Desktop Virtualization 1.5

Wanova Inc, which specializes in centralizing user desktops in the data center, has released Mirage Version 1.5 at VMworld today (August 31, 2010) — boasting that this version brings more features and capabilities than ever before. Here’s some background.

The goal Wanova had with version 1.5 was to simplify the management of desktops across the enterprise. With it, Wanova added “support for endpoints running Windows 7, a wizard to easily migrate PCs from Windows XP to Windows 7 over the WAN, a free 5-license trial version of the software that can be downloaded from Wanova.com” and more.

Wanova Mirage feels they offer a unique solution; in addition to centralizing the full content of a user’s desktop with all installed applications, Mirage can create a “Centralized Virtual Desktop” (CVD) — which is bootable and hardware agnostic. In fact, the CVD can be deployed locally or virtually, or to migrate a user to brand new hardware with little downtime. Wanova cites a use case for help-desk techs who can use the CVD as if they were in front of the actual machine. The edited CVD that has been ‘fixed’ can then get re-synchronized with the users PC.

The free 5-license evaluation (get it here) includes support for storage optimization (like the OS only being written once) along with Windows 7 support, and a “Compliance Meter” that lets IT admins see the health of the desktop environment, manage base images for endpoints, and maintain compliance across the network.

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